North and South

Hello hello! I just thought of something and I'm trying to type it out except i'm currently quite dizzy. I have no idea WHY i am dizzy and unbalanced , just that i am and am also hoping that this feeling wears off soon.

Anyway, i like hindi movies. I really do. I'm half sindhi and half tamil but my tamil speaking skills need acres and acres of improvement, and this could be due to the fact that i prefer to watch hindi movies to tamil ones. as of now i can understand tamil, relatively alright, so long as people don't speak too fast. I'm embarrassed to actually speak tamil because i'm so bad at it, hence i usually just listen and laugh. On the other hand, through watching hindi movies, and at one point, hindi serials (though now i have no time for them), i'm actually picking up phrases and words. If i try hard enough, i may even be able to speak a few sentences, though i've never actually tried. Again, my inability to withstand embarrassment prevents me from testing out my new-found skill fo speaking hindi. This above-written fact alone is interesting because i've always thought of myself as quite thick-skinned. However, i've come to realise that i'm only thick-skinned when i don't actually have to speak. If situations require me to talk, that's where i start blushing; especially when i'm not proficient in that language.

Anyway, my whole point of starting to talk about this topic is that i'm beginning to worry that as i watch more and more hindi movies and listen to more hindi songs, and slowly move away from the tamil language, i'm scared that one day i won't even be able to understand tamil! I mean i haven't gone for a tamil class in at least a year! what if i forget? I mean, speaking tamil is part of having the identity of being half tamil. If i don't have that, then how can i BE half tamil? You see my predicament?

This so-called identity crisis is in further danger due to the fact that, for some reason i don't feel that i feel anywhere. I don't watch tamil movies or listen to tamil songs,so i don really have much to talk about with my friends, regarding that area. Not that i don't have things tot alk to them about, just that particular area. And don't even get me started on the sindhi community. I mean i have nothing against them, and they're perfectly nice people, really, but they're a really hard group to crack. Really, they are, and it doesn't help that we( meaning me and my sister) don't even SPEAK sindhi or hindi. some of my other cousins have like sindhi friends and me and my sister are wondering "where the HELL do you find them!!!???" cuz we don't meet any sindhis outside of family functions and so the only sindhis we KNOW are the ones RELATED to us. Which actually means quite a number of them, cuz somehow we're related to quite a number of people. You know how it is;" he's your auntie's, brother's wife's, second cousin's uncle's daughter's husband's brother's son! You remember?!".*rolls eyes*

So we(sis and i) don't really fit in anywhere, which makes me think that maybe we're( meaning us as people in general) aren't meant to "fit in anywhere" because when we think we fit, that's when we relax and maybe relax TOO much and get TOO comfortable with where we are. Which is also never good either. Or at least this is what i tell myself when i start pitying myself unnecessarily(meaning all that drivel i wrote above). To turn this negative post into i positive one, i'm really glad i got the best of both worlds, cuz that may mean that one day i'll master tamil, hindi and sindhi and be more than trilingual! plus, think about it, i look A LOT like my mother and imagine people's faces when they hear tamil coming out of my mouth!!! Also my mother uses my ability to understand tamil when we're shopping in serangoon road and some customer or shopkeeper mumbles something in tamil, i can translate(somewhat) for her!no "lost in translation" for us! (being positive remember?being quite ridiculously positive now i think)

Well, i think i've succeeded in turning the post around now and besides, i've written like an ESSAY. i think nobody reads my blog cuz its so damn long. but then again, it wouldn't be MY blog right? anyway, i'm getting tired of digging deep. (my lit teachers would throw a fit if all i could come up was this nonsense about "identity" after a whole year talking about it. Then again, some things are too personal for the internet right? so it doesn't mean i lost it;) ) so i shall go off now and sleep and ponder on my so-called identity issue(if it even exists). So tata my children, and remember, if u're ever unsure about yourself or your identity, don't fret;be glad that you're always evolving and are not monotonous! Tata now!


loves,

shini

p.s. STILL dizzy. quite worried about it now. maybe sleep will help. HOPE sleep helps. nights!