Musings of a Poet

What does it take to write good poetry? I don't know, for I'm not sure if what I write is good. I don't know how I can tell, unless I'm told by a lot of people that what I write is good, but then not many people read poetry these days, so one can never really be sure. One yardstick is to check whether I am satisfied with my poetry or not. However, since that is pretty inconclusive by itself, let's just leave the adjective out for now and just talk about poetry -  good or bad. So how does one make poetry? This is not about the technicalities of writing poems or about meter. Of course, it does help if you know your elegies from your panegyrics and if you know your iambs from your trochees, but poetry is not about just rhyme and meter. Sometimes it is not about that at all. In fact these things could sometimes be constraints that you impose upon yourself, and the more you do this, the more you limit yourself from being able to express what you truly mean to say; and the first rule of poetry is to be able to truly say what you want. Thus, poetry is about speaking the truth. Every time you speak the truth or write the truth, it is poetry. By extension, poetry is also about expression - one must be able to express the truth - and here we are not talking about objective truths about the way things are - that we shall leave to the scientists. Here, we speak about the truth about what you feel - it could be about anything from a moving lobster on someone's dinner plate to a girl you meet at a bar to a beautiful countryside to a general existentialist interpretation about the way things are in this world, and as long as you are able to effectively express what you truly feel, you are on your way to making good poetry. All you need to do is to speak your heart out without restraining yourself. It is not about the form - a lot of beautiful poetry can be found in prose as well. Read some of Toni Morrison's or Marquez's work and you will see poetry running across the texts almost everywhere. So how does one distinguish between poetic and non poetic texts? How does one define a poem? I really don't know. I may not be able to define a poem, but then definitions are not what poets are best at - let's leave that to the logicians and the lexicographers maybe. What I do know though is that in poetry, the words always dance. Even when they are still, they are only acting as a pause in the general arrangement of the music. So when you see words dancing, you witness poetry, and the better the words dance, the better the poetry is. Poetry also has a certain mysteriousness about it -  the words seem to be talking about something at a level more abstract than what happens everyday. One must suspend certain regularities about how things usually function and be willing to enter a different realm where we are willing to read between the lines, and also above and below and around the lines - for the meaning is not exactly in the words being laid out, but hidden thereabouts somewhere. 

So how does one create this mystery? How does one make words dance? It's a lot similar to how one can make me dance - possibly the only way to make me dance - get me drunk! Get me drunk enough to shed my inhibitions and flow with the music - one with everything around;  but words don't get drunk on wine, or beer. It does help a bit, but then you don't want your creativity to outlast your liver by a huge margin, and so getting drunk to become a poet is not the best idea. Words get drunk instead on inspiration, and this inspiration goes well with turbulent passions and emotions. When there is sufficient inspiration and a sufficient stirring of passions and emotions, poetry arrives and words begin to vibrate and dance. This inspiration can come from anywhere - it doesn't necessarily have to be from love or from a heartbreak; although a heartbreak can sometimes help in creating these circumstances, it may not be a great idea to go around looking for a heartbreak in order to write good poetry, for even if one does get their heart broken and then manages to write good poetry, the poetry will always be the next best thing, for I would gladly exchange all the poems that have stemmed from a heartbreak to not have my heart broken in the first place; for it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, but it is better still to be able to love and not lose at all. So this inspiration and excited passion can come from anywhere at any moment. There is no point sitting and waiting for it; it will come when it has to, and when it does come, there will be no stopping it. It may help to go and look for it forcefully, but then one might end up missing on a lot of other great things laid out for you in life in the bargain, and these things may be a lot more important than being able to write good poetry. Who has time for poetry these days anyway? And of what good is this poetry we speak about? Plato had banished it from his republic, and although several people have defended poetry, these were mostly poets themselves. I haven't come across many non-poets standing up in defense of poetry. So what use does it have anyway? Why would one even want to write poetry?

There are two reasons to write poetry - one is for the self and the other is for others. Firstly, good poetry is honest, and honesty can seldom be a bad thing. So the first job of a poet is to be true, and to also be able to express this truth well. A poet must first try and find out the truth about himself or herself - and this makes everyone a poet, as long as one isn't merely flowing along with fashion and is instead trying to think about what he or she is truly made of, made for, and about what their purpose in this life is, about the beauty that might lie in the smallest drop or in the might of an entire ocean or the universe. One must also use poetry to conquer emotions, and be able to present perspectives about incidents that others may not have thought of before. Good poetry, therefore, is about seeing things from different perspectives, and it is also about saying things in different ways, to make it appeal to more people, to make more people connect with your ideas. Once a poet is able to do this, the next step is to become a beacon for society, to point out things that are not right, to point out areas that are hidden, and to do this in the most non-moralizing way possible. Good poetry is about showing a mirror to people in the form of words that they can understand. Simplicity, therefore, is an essential ingredient of good poetry. Of course a poem can have several layers but even at the simplest level, a poem must make sense to the most casual reader. All other allusions, craftsmanship, showmanship and wordplay can be then woven into this basic framework of the poem to make it more profound, so that people with varying levels of initiation can interpret it in many ways. A key to good poetry is to connect with as many people as one can, for while a vast portion of the meaning of the poem lies in the head that it came from, an at least equally vast portion of the meaning also lies in the heads it is going to enter - in the way they interpret it, and the more the interpretations are, the more meaningful a poem gets, and the more meaning it adds to people's lives, the more purposeful it gets. 

So if I were to conclude, I would say that good poetry would involve the unrestricted expression of powerful truths, both about the self and about the world, where the poet acts as a beacon that shows the truth to those who do not see it from a similar perspective, in a manner in which most people can understand; and good poetry comes only when one is inspired and when one allows emotions and passions to reach a certain level of volatility required to make us reach out for that level of existence where we can speak with a certain mysticsm by making words dance. Poetry is about making people see things from your vantage point, and the higher you let your passions elevate yourself, the higher you let inspiration take you, the more novel your vantage point will be from the rest, the greater your sense of mystery, and the better your words dance, and therefore, the better your poetry. Poetry is thus about perspective, about passion, inspiration, honesty and novelty -  and good poetry must have all of these in it.

Musings of a Desi Dog

I am that dog round the corner of your house you may have seen for years, hanging around the garbage dump, licking scraps from your left-overs, cleaning up some of the mess you have made in your surroundings. Yes, I am it (not he or she, for you don't care about those details). I know that some of you might actually notice me for the first time, although I may not, even now, be worthy of being considered an entity. I know you have never considered the fact that while you switch on your air-conditioners and can't stand a moment without your instant power back-up, I am panting around the street just looking for some water to drink. What I get is mostly water contaminated with the filth you throw around, or the sewage you have failed to treat, and I often fall ill despite my robust immune system created by years of eating from your very own neighbourhood garbage dump. Yes, I'm that creature that you kick every time you are walking on the street and have nothing better to do, or hurl a stone at just because you saw one lying around. There are many like me. Some of us live near garbage dumps, the lucky ones near restaurants, and the really unlucky ones on the highways. You may have seen a shattered skull or some pulled out intestines on your way to work, or maybe not because you were too busy formulating that report you had to send to your boss before 10 AM. There was a friend of mine who lay there on the street, with two broken legs, run over by a car driven by someone who hadn't woken up on time and hence was rushing to work. He lay there whimpering and trying to crawl to safety, lying there on the highway for almost twenty minutes. Some of you swerved, some of you braked and changed lanes before you drove on, until someone had had enough of the traffic jam being caused by this broken-legged nuisance lying on the road and ran over his head, putting an end to his misery. Maybe I should be thankful that he did that; it may have been better that way.

You love your speed, but we love our lives too. I'm sure your drunken driving can be kept under control if you really care. I saw one of you, who had run over my sister and my mother together when I was very young, as he was zooming by in his BMW on MG road, and he pulled up a little further down the road and got out. I was naive then and thought that he would call for some help, as my mother lay thrashing about on the road - she could have been saved if help had been called, but he got out, walked around to the other car,and said to his friend, "Oye Baench*d Bumper Thuk Gayi Yaar! Insurance bhi nahin milega". He then glanced towards us angrily, hurled a few more expletives about how we had become a menace everywhere, climbed back into his car and drove on, as I ran about helplessly, witnessing death for the first time - merely 3 months old. Some of us die and remain bloated on the sidewalk for days or weeks, eaten by the vultures and crows, till some day a minister or a VIP is to ride down that road and hence the rotten carcass is lifted from the road and thrown into the nearest garbage dump. Some of us are left on the road, run over again and again till our bones become the road and our fur becomes the carpet. There are still some dog-made carpets on most highways you will ply on. You just need to look closely; not all those bumps are made of tar. The next time you're stuck in a traffic jam, look and maybe you'll find one of us, identifiable by some faded fur sticking out of some mud in the middle of the road. You say there are too many of us, but then there are too many of you as well. Do you deal with our issue just like you deal with yours? We have babies too; yes, we have many of them and we can't help it; they're not in our control. We don't know how to use birth control pills, we don't know how to control our urge to procreate. Yes, we have babies who need to be fed. While the mother goes out hunting for food, sometimes you chase her away, sometimes you beat her with sticks, sometimes you scare her onto the road, where she is run-over by a car or a truck. The babies cannot feed themselves. Their eyes and ears don't open until they are two weeks old. They die without their mothers, or they die without food. They did not choose this life; it was thrust upon them. Does this mean anything to you, you who cry looking at 'cute' pictures of puppies on your laptop, and press 'like' on almost every picture that might get you some attention from some pretty girls or just to feel a sense of self-esteem?

Some of you are nice to us; you give us food and water, and most importantly, you give us your love. We like that the most of all; to be loved, to be petted, to be cuddled. Some of you even take us with you and give us a home - god bless you guys, but there are so few of you. The rest consider us too dirty, but they don't bathe us, or even give us an environment to keep ourselves clean. They think that all of us have rabies by default. Sometimes, that's a good thing, because at least that fear keeps them away. Some of you come and spay us. When you spay the males, you're actually chopping their balls off, and thus taking their manhood away. When you spay the female, you take away her uterus, but at least leave her ovaries behind, so that she can mate again! And then you chop off a part of our ear just so you don't catch hold of us and spay us all over again! A lot of us are taken to animal shelters too. Yes, a whole bunch of us live there, mostly in conditions so despicable that we'd rather be on the street where we were born. At least we're free to run around and to fend for ourselves, and not locked up in cages where we barely have enough space to turn twice before we lie down, something we love doing all the time. Some of us are locked together with others, where we fight for space and territory, wound and sometimes even kill each other, till we're tired and fall asleep in the pool of our own shit and blood. Sounds sexy, doesn't it? Yes, this is the life we live. What can you do about it? Well, for a start, think about it. Turn your attention away from whatsapps and the facebooks and the twitters and your androids and your iphones and your blackberries and your PPTs and your excel sheets, and give us a second glance; think about what the solution is. We don't want your food, though a bone every now and then would be awesome! We would love to have your time, but I know that is too much to ask. All we need is some respect, something we feel we deserve as fellow denizens of this planet. We know we don't have your IQ and your nuclear bombs and shit, but maybe that's because we never wanted them. We take one look at your lives and we are sometimes glad that we live a dog's life and not a human's!

The next time you see one of us, we'd like it if you don't kick us around. If you see some of us living in deplorable conditions because of the mess you've made, try and do something about that if you can. The next time your son or your daughter or your aunt or your uncle or anyone asks for a dog, instead of calling up that cocky breeder from Chattarpur for the super-expensive Dalmatian or Retriever or Terrier, try and pick one of us. We are just about as intelligent and will probably be more loyal to you. We may not be as 'cute' and 'cuddly' but we are sturdier. We live longer and we don't fall ill, because our genes and our immune systems have not been artificially messed around with. We don't have breathing problems like Boxers, back problems like Dachshunds and Alsatians, and don't suffer from obesity like Golden Retrievers. We don't shed as much hair as Pomeranians or Spaniels and can survive on roti and milk or even dal-chawal; yes, we don't need to be fed Pedigree or the likes of them! We know that you're going to take a huge hit in your social circle because Mr. Sharma is going to look down upon you and say that your desi is no comparison to his Rottweiler, and Mr. Singh from Punjabi Bagh is going to smugly point towards his chained up Bull Mastiff and talk to you about the benefits of having a big dog like that, chained up and without exercise, depressed and without company, and Mrs. Chopra, Chihuahua in hand, is going to taunt your wife that you guys don't have a Pug or a Spitz, but if you can for once in this lifetime look past the superficiality of your oh-so-lovely social circle and look at the real benefits of having a pair of loving eyes looking up to you, waiting eagerly for you to come back home, the wagging tail welcoming you with a happiness neither Mr. nor Mrs. Bhatia can fake when they see you, when you hear us bark at night and gladly put our own lives at risk to protect yours, when you truly witness that true love that only a desi dog can give, you might change your opinion about us and tell Mr. Iyer from Defence Colony and Mrs. Bose from C.R. Park, that if you yourself are a desi, then why can't your dog be one too?

Musings of a Rape Survivor

I recently read a scathing article by a girl who signed off as an 18 year old feminist, the main gist of which was that when women get raped, we shouldn't even begin to to talk about how they should dress, what they should do, how they should be able to protect themselves, etc. While I do not completely agree that women should not take precautions considering what a savage city Delhi has become, there is certainly a point in what the girl is saying. If I were to focus and channel my energy somewhere, then it must not be so much on how the victim can prevent the rape, but how I can stop the culprit from not committing the crime. This made me question the whole concept of rape. What is rape? Is it merely the forceful insertion of the penis into the vagina, or is it more than that? Is molestation, groping, passing lewd comments, etc. also rape? If we merely consider the physical act of it, rape is not such a bad deal. Two bodies have sex - one mind enjoys it, the other resists, struggles, but then when it is done, in most cases, both bodies leave the scene, and in a few days, traces of the event's occurrence are barely visible. So, if it's a physical thing, then it really isn't such a big deal! Then what is rape? I checked the Cambridge website and it defines rape as "to force someone to have sex when he or she is unwilling" Then it also says, "Rape also means to damage or destroy something by using it in an unsuitable way" - E.g. Developers are raping the countryside. For me, rape is 'when one unit of consciousness, or many of these at times, impose themselves on another (or others) without the latter's approval'. Yes, we can rape the environment too, some units of which aren't necessarily conscious, may not have a sense of identity, or may not even be alive, but here I'd like to focus on the rape of one human being by another, and it isn't, for me, only about sex. So let's look at Delhi - the rape capital of India. Does this sobriquet surprise me? Not one bit. Then I thought to myself, WHY DOESN'T THIS SURPRISE ME? Isn't there something really wrong in the fact that a city where I've lived for the last 12-odd years is the rape capital of the country and I AM NOT SURPRISED? This got me thinking about why I was not surprised. What was it about the city that made me accept this as a fact without even raising an eyebrow? It was then that it dawned on me.

A few years ago, I was going from North Campus to Gurgaon in a regular non-airconditioned bus when a man climbed on to the bus and asked if the bus went to Rajouri. The bus driver and the conductor, who was right in front at that time, replied, "Abbe chal utar! Nahin jaegi, saale Bihari!" The guy got agitated and said, "Gaali kyon de raha ho bhai?" in a Bihari accented Hindi. The bus driver replied, saying "Abbe gaali kahaan de raha hun, Bihari hi to bol raha hun!" I laughed at that point of time, because it was funny. A few years later, when I first met the lady (a Bihari) who worked in my house as the domestic help  for nearly 5 years, she told me that her son got really upset and would start hitting the other kids if they called him a Bihari, and so I had to sit him down and explain how he should be proud of his identity, of where he came from, and who he was, etc.  Anyway, as I read the 18-year old's scathing article on men, and thought about these two incidents, it somehow seemed to connect. She had written about a 5-year old who got repeatedly raped by her neighbour. She's right, the little girl could not have provoked the rape, or even 'asked for it', so the solution is defintely not there. It lies somewhere else. 

They say that it is not about sex, it's about power - the feminists do; and I think I agree. It is about power, about an inflated ego,  the lack of genuine empathy. In a city where every step makes you feel vulnerable unless you're one of them, lurking around, looking for someone to make fun of, someone to tease, and if you get challenged, go out of your way to whatever extent possible to squash that source of opposition that challenged your authority to do absolutely anything you want! Yes, the mind and one's identity get raped almost every time one steps out. It's not just the women getting raped. That is of course the absolute nadir that this primitive mindset can drag people down to, but I get raped mentally and spiritually several times every day. I was travelling on a really crowded DTC bus for my first job interview in Gurgaon, wearing a tweed coat I had bought from Daryanganj for 100 rupees, shampooed, conditioned hair, scrubbed, clean-shaven face when a group of teenagers next to me weren't letting me stand properly. When I requested them to make some space, they started hurling expletives at me, and when I tried to make some space for myself, one of them pulled my poney-tail! I think I know what it feels like to be raped, because I can imagine and extrapolate -  a skill necessary for being able to empathise. A few years back still, during my first few years in Delhi, on a DTC bus yet again, a man vacated a 'ladies only' seat and another man jumped onto it, while a 60 year old lady, along with her teenage daughter, stood there, trying to make her way to the vacant seat. No one complained, no one seemed to care. I thought for a few seconds and then went up to the guy and asked him why he was sitting in a ladies only seat, and that he should vacate it for the lady standing right next to him. His reply was "Saale teri maa lagti hai ke? Gaad doonga tanne yahin pe! Chup karle nahin toh pit jaego yahin pe!" I looked around for some support from the 50 odd other men there, some sitting, some standing, but got no response - a look of amusement and curiosity from a few at best. Some even asked me to move on and avoid starting a fight; and I thought to myself that maybe I was expecting too much, that maybe this was the norm, that this is how it worked here!

I was scared, just like a woman is when she encounters the possibility of getting raped. The thought of being beaten up, abused, their identity being violated. It is all about identity, isn't it? A stone doesn't get hurt even if you break it to pieces or turn it to dust, at least not apparently to the human senses, and this is because it does not have a sense of identity. A tree may get hurt, but doesn't scream because it does not have a voice. I'm not sure if a tree has a sense of identity.When we slaughter animals, slap a weaker person or kick the stray dog on the street, we are violating their sense of identity. Identity is, in a way the source of all problems. If we did not have a sense of identity, we would not have a problem even if someone came and stabbed us with a knife! However, until everyone in this world attains Nirvana (which from the current state of mental and spiritual evolution of the average human being must take at least a few zillion aeons to acheive), this is a problem that will always exist. So, eliminating the sense of identity is not really an option. The solution, though, is related to the sense of identity. In fact, it is an important part of my definition of rape. Rape is when we violate anyone's sense of identity, or we invade it without their approval.

If we want rape to stop, maybe we should change these little things in the way people treat us. If we want a woman to stand up and fight when she gets molested or raped, think about what we can do when when a person completely unknown to us passes a comment on something that doesn't concern him at all, on the fact that you have tattoos and piercings, or that you have long hair, or that your eyes are slanted, or that you have dark skin, or that you are walking with a girl on the street. Yes, we are constantly getting raped each time this happens. I was walking my dogs in my neighbourhood last week when a random guy walking on the road went, "Abbe yeh kaise desi kutte paal rakhe hain?" I just got raped right there! When I go to a grocery shop and ask for something the guy does not have, and he just gestures me away without even looking at me, I get raped right there. When I see a rickshaw puller being slapped by a local for asking for too much money, or by a cop for parking in a no-parking zone, I witness rape right there! When I went to a police station once to save a drunk friend from being beaten up by the cops, trying to reason with him and with the cops, and one of the cops turned around and slapped me,I was raped right there! When a north-eastern guy is called 'Bahadur' or a south Indian guy is called 'Madrasi' or when a Bihari guy is called 'Bihari' (yes, of course he is a Bihari, but it's not the word; it's the tone!), we are raped right there! What we can do about this is not something I'd like to venture into, as the purpose of writing this is more to kindle the idea of us being raped everyday without even knowing it, and not to dictate a solution, as I don't really have one. Maybe we can talk about it, write about it or act upon it, but the next time someone invades our right to exist peacefully by attacking our identity, I hope we see the face of a rapist right there in front of us and act accordingly...

Musings of a Nepalan in Delhi

I am a little over 20 years old, and I am a Nepalan. For those of you who are not familiar with this term, it is used by Delhiites to refer to any girl with Mongoloid features, irrespective of which part of the world she comes from. The term is said to be the feminine form of 'Nepali', which refers to an inhabitant of Nepal, but people in Delhi tend to use it freely with anyone who looks different from them and is not a Madrasi (anyone from the south, or dark-complexioned in general). Well, I am definitely not a Madrasi, or a Madrasan to be precise, so I must be a Nepalan, as I often hear people call me everywhere, be it in the lewd conversations on a crowded bus, an amused exclamation in the marketplace, in hushed whispers on a college campus, or in drunken jokes in night clubs and pubs.

I am the quintessential Nepalan as the Delhiite knows her. I could be from anywhere. It doesn't seem to make a difference. I have friends from Ladakh, Ghadwal, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, Manipur, Mizoram, Arunachal, Sikkim, Darjeeling, Calimpong, Tripura, Nagaland, Meghalaya, etc., but when we are in Delhi, our identities merge into that of a single Nepalan. Many don't even know which of the places mentioned above are cities, which states and which separate countries. Everyone from rickshaw pullers from Bihar, to shopkeepers from Rajasthan has asked us about our nationality, or at least asked us where we're from, and when when we tell them, they have a confused look upon their face. So why bother at all? I just tell them I'm a Nepalan.

This kind of stereotyping everyone who looks different from them is not limited only to the name given to us. It actually reflects a mindset of the people. For them, we are outsiders, we don't belong here. Even when we walk up to property dealers and landlords to rent houses, they look at us with either a strange expression that could range from amusement to curious perplexion to plain ridicule. They think that all we do is drugs and alcohol and party and live a life of loose morals. I have been refused accommodaion in many places simply because of the way I look. I have been asked for my ID on numerous occasions simply because of the way I look. I have been approached indecently by men of all ages and professions only because of how I look. Yes, I am that Nepalan that they see on the street everyday and stare at as if they've never seen a woman in their lives; I'm that object that unchains all those loose morals that prevent them from doing this to their own kind, because their society prevents them from doing so, because if they do it to a Punjabi girl, her father will chop their balls off with his Kirpan, and if they do it to a Haryanvi girl, they might get stoned to death with their own balls, but if they do it to the Nepalan, no one really cares, and this is how we get to see them, all stripped of their morals and pseudo-cultured mannerisms, their barenaked souls ogling at us with their tongues far out and your eyes popping out even farther. Yes, it is because I am out of my comfort zone, out of the safety of my village, my hometown, my father and uncles and brothers are back home, while I am here, trying to complete my education, make a living, build a career, run a business, or even simply whiling away time, wondering what to do with life.

I live in a 2 BHK apartment, which I have to share with other people from back home, as accommodation here is a bit expensive, and although we stick to ourselves and do things without getting in the way of the locals, we are often prodded about what we are upto, why we are up late at night, why boys come to visit us, why we smoke or drink alcohol, etc. Every now and then we hear about our women getting groped, molested, raped, and a lot of times we are too scared to even report it to the police, as many cops are often hand-in-glove with the locals and the landlords, and would sometimes even refuse to register complaints citing several absurd reasons. I often wonder what the average Delhiite thinks of me. I know that not all of them are alike. I have met some well-mannered, educated people from here as well, who actually look at me as a human being and not like a chicken that has accidentally run our of her pen and must be had for dinner! I know of people who I've had brilliant conversations with, who I can speak and roam around freely with, without any apprehensions, but these people are few and far between. I wonder what the majority thinks of me as I walk past them on the street. From schoolboys to middle-aged men with their hands rubbing their bellies, their fingers running into the spaces between the buttons on their shirts, to old men twirling their moustaches. I wish I could sit down with some of them and have a conversation about me, about where I'm from, about what my life is like, about how beautiful the place where I come from is, to learn about their culture, to have a healthy exchange of ideas and lifestyles, but I am often scared, by the stare that seems to look through me as if I were a non-entity without any rights or liberties, as if I shouldn't be here.

Then why would anyone blame me for not considering myself completely Indian, when I sometimes accidently refer to the locals as 'Indians' as if I weren't Indian myself. My people understand what I mean; It does not mean that I don't have an allegiance to this wonderful nation that we are proud to be a part of, but it is just that we don't quite feel that we are completely accepted as one of them by the people who live at the heart of it. I make an attempt to learn the language, to adapt to the culture and the lifestyle, but I don't see the reciprocal happening. We mostly come from the borders of the nation and often don't find much mention in geography and social science textbooks while we grow up. We know that many mainland Indians haven't heard about us, because maybe ours was the chapter they could afford to leave out when they didn't have time to study everything in the social science course, but maybe they could make an effort when they see some of us in person. I don't expect them to carve a path for us to walk on, or to make adjustments in their lifestyles to suit mine, but one could at least try and understand me, try to find out what I am made of, what I am upto, what my dreams and desires are, who my favourite bollywood hero is, what my favourite bollywood song is, whether I like Shahrukh more or Salman, what my favourite Saas-Bahu serial is. All we ask for is some respect, and if there is curiosity, which is understandable, then at least rid it of all those unnecessary, uncomfortable and demeaning add-ons that ride along with it. All I ask for is my identity and my culture to be protected. loved, preserved and cherished, and not blurred into a single term - the Nepalan!