Diaspora has passed me by by a generation or two. The places my family came from no longer exist. They have been trampled on and destroyed by the largest human movement in modern history, under the feet of over 25 million people. The idea of diaspora ultimately requires a homeland, which entails something a little more than just geography.
Those places are now littered with women in hijabs, jilbabs and niqabs, beaming with pride at having thrown away the chunniã of their grandmothers which now represent the religious ‘others’, traversing the mazes of bazars, haggling with shopkeepers in a foreign tongue lest that sense of artificial patriotism they have been indoctrinated with since birth fall into question, while their children sit at home, lucky to hear the languages that have travelled side by side with their blood for centuries, completely ignorant than 70 years ago it was khuda, not allah who was the hafiz, and that it was rabb who was the raakha.
The places my family left now only exist in the fond memories of the dead and the stories they told to their children and they to us. Those places are now no more a homeland to me than Rajputana and Punjab are to the Roma.
Since birth I have carried a passport that clashes with the colour of my skin, lived in a country where my existence is often chalked down to a problem in demography, where I am expected to happily tick hyphenated boxes that affirm that my nationality is in fact the result of a greater anomaly and that I cannot, and should not, consider the country I have been born in and spent my life in as my ‘real’ home. Of course, to say I am from the Midlands is just a precursor to the more important questions: Where are you really from? Where are your family from?
My family is from a place that doesn’t exist anymore. We are the remnants of a better time that my naani could smile about, before religious nations, modern states and politicised identities.
Diaspora has nothing to do with me. I too, have now become a gypsy.
Diaspora has passed me by by a generation or two. The places my family came from no longer exist. They have been trampled on and destroyed by the largest human movement in modern history, under the feet of over 25 million people. The idea of diaspora ultimately requires a homeland, which entails something a little more than just geography and map coordinates.
Those places are now littered with women in hijabs, jilbabs and niqabs, beaming with pride at having thrown away the chunniã of their grandmothers which now represent the religious ‘others’, traversing the mazes of bazars, haggling with shopkeepers in a foreign tongue lest that sense of artificial patriotism they have been indoctrinated with since birth fall into question, while their children sit at home, lucky to hear the languages that have travelled side by side with their blood for centuries, completely ignorant than 70 years ago it was khuda, not allah who was the hafiz, and that it was rabb who was the raakha.
The places my family left now only exist in the fond memories of the dead and the stories they told to their children and they to us. Those places are now no more a homeland to me than Rajputana and Punjab are to the Roma.
Since birth I have carried a passport that clashes with the colour of my skin, lived in a country where my existence is often chalked down to a problem in demography, where I am expected to happily tick hyphenated boxes that affirm that my nationality is in fact the result of a greater anomaly and that I must not, and should not, consider the country I have been born in and spent my life in as my real home. Of course, to say I am from the Midlands is just a precursor to the more important questions: Where are you really from? Where are your family from?
My family is from places that don’t exist anymore. We are the remnants of a better time that my naani could smile about, before religious nations, modern states and politicised identities.
Diaspora has nothing to do with me. I too am now a gypsy.
