Every night

[For my program -- SOL -- we submit four 'Letter Home' essays during the summer that consist of our thoughts at the time. This is my second letter.]

I laid on the thin cloth-covered pad that was confiscated from a room downstairs at the Baap Field Center. During the summers, it is common to sleep on the roof to avoid the suffocating heat of the inconsistent indoor fans. The pillow under my head expedited the perspiring as my body desperately looked for ways to cool. Below me and around the field center was the unassuming desert, where sand shifted for no one. Above me was the stale darkness, littered with tiny holes. “How is the weather in America, can you see the stars?” a GRAVIS field worker questioned in Hindi. “Sometimes, ... sometimes you can see them if it's not cloudy.” I answered with uncertainty as to his motives. “Here, you can see them every night.”

In my first week in Jodhpur I decided to walk to work. It had been a few days, and I felt that the only knowledge of the city I had were the brief mental images of the busy shops and unorganized shantis I took while winding through the streets in a rickshaw. I was confident I knew the direction, so I left my guest house that is situated on the end of an empty street two hours before the work day began and attempted to find my way.

I wore shorts that day, or half-pants in India-speak, because of the weather. I also donned my tan colored cotton shirt to neutralize my look. I walked along familiarities and reasoned that if I got lost in the maze of trash and mud, I would ask someone the way. Every step I took I could feel the eyes of others in cars and on motorcycles closing in on me as they passed, somehow uncovering the secret I unknowingly tried to keep from them. They looked with unabashed expressions toward a face they vaguely recognized. They knew what I had suspected for a while now: I am not Indian.

For forty five minutes I was not sure where I was going, but I would not dare ask a soul like I had previously planned. There were ample opportunities as I passed tea stalls and fruit-vallas, but I knew that the second I opened my mouth and spouted the sentence I had practiced in my head a hundred times since I left the guest house – Milk Men Colony kahaa hai? (Where is Milk Men Colony?) -- they would know that I was not one of them. A conversation between two Indians that did not know each other would turn into a conversation between two people that did not know each other at all. I could not take that risk, perhaps because I did not want to face reality. I walked on.

Thirty minutes later I reached my destination after finding a road sign that pointed me in the right direction. I didn't attempt the walk from my guest house to work again for fear of repeating the uncomfortable nature of that morning. For the rest of the week I resumed riding in a rickshaw.

Days later we drove to a field visit. The drive was short but I was tired and slept in spells with my head bobbing up and down in between consciousness. The car rose and fell over the government road with its four wheels often leaving the ground entirely. We arrived and were led to the guest house where we deposited our things. The place was beautiful. There was a garden in the desert. I couldn't believe that such a thing was possible, and I marveled at GRAVIS' moxie to even endeavor it.

Another intern took me around to tour the center. I saw the school that was nothing more than a concrete room with a small chalkboard, and English and Hindi phrases on the walls. I saw the tube well that supplied the surrounding villages with water. And I met a family; in it were numerous brothers and sisters, one who spoke English fairly well -- Rahul. He extended the tour and showed us things he considered interesting: the wall composed of uneven stone planks that differentiated the various dhanis from the field center, the latrine that was carved neatly into the ground, etc. As the tour was ending he turned to me and said, “At first I thought you were Marwari, and then I thought you were from some other part of India, and then I realized you were American.” He said it so matter-of-fact and with such innocence that I didn't feel the weight of his words right away, but I reflected on it intensely for days afterwards.

Illustration 1: Rahul (top left) and his family

For my entire life I have considered myself Indian. To whomever I've met I delivered this fact with a confidence burned into my being: “100% full blooded, both my parents are Indian.” It should not bother me to be labeled as a person that is not Indian because technically I was not born here; but this is my culture and whenever someone proclaims the discovery of my true birthplace, it feels as though they have stripped me of my most coveted possession: my identity. I am Jasdeep, and I am Indian -- this is who I have always been. But when Rahul looked at me, really looked at me, he saw something I could not see for so many years of my life: I am Jasdeep, and I am not Indian.

Yet those words just don't seem right together. In the first few days of the class that I took in preparation for this experience, every one was asked to individually identify themselves in a sentence. The instructor noted examples of past students stating their religion or their country of origin. He went around the room, and I contemplated what I would say. I blurted something that now is very vague and jumbled in my head – apparently not as significant as I would have liked --, and I hoped the twenty odd faces receiving my words gained something. What I remember of the labels I offered was my name, my religion, and that I am in fact from the South. I do not remember saying 'I am Indian' because it seemed inconsequential in the melting pot of America and even half-presumptive based on my skin color. He moved on and the rest of the class introduced themselves. I am struck now between the disparities of how I would identify myself in different places. In the sprawling cities housing the millions that seek to trade their rags for riches in the United States I am the son of Indian immigrants who came for opportunity; but in the crowded streets resulting from the occupation of over a billion people in India I am the son of Indian emigrants who left their country and their home.

Looking at the sky from my resting place on the roof in Baap, I thought about my home in North Carolina. I thought about how I grew up in a place where, although my parents speak it and urged me to attend lessons, I was not taught Punjabi, the language of my ancestors . I thought about when I was a child in elementary school I wanted to change my name from the often mispronounced Jasdeep to Bob, a tribute to the host of my then-favorite radio station. I thought about when I reached high school my feelings about my name had not changed as a teacher referred to me as Jasmine on the first day of school. I thought about how, completely aware, I sought to lose my culturally identity.

When I reached college my losses seemed starkly apparent among the population of Indians at Duke. I decided I needed to learn something so I took Hindi classes and read Indian history. I have spent the last two summers in India seeking something I can hold on to as I continue my life in America. Between these experiences abroad, I often lay in my dormitory bed at night thinking of all the time I have lost, and when the clouds part and the sky is clearly visible from my window I can connect the dots to construct the Dippers and Orion's Belt (or something that resembles them). I may never be considered Indian by those that actually live in this country, but I will never stop considering myself an Indian because at that moment under the stars in the desert: I knew we shared something. Something, whether they are aware of it or not, they have shared with me every night.

Illustration 2: A rooftop in Jodhpur