What is your identity?

What is your identity?

This was a real incident narrated by the HOD of TTS -TamilNadu Theological Seminary - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamilnadu_Theological_Seminary during a sermon at Memorial Church, Whitefield. I found it quite thought provoking and decide to narrate it as a first person account (as if narrated by him).

TTS - HOD: We were staying in Switzerland. We didn't have the midnight service during new year, hence we used to gather in Germany to celebrate, party and welcome the new year. We were a large set of Indians and we were united and felt proud to be identified as Indians - the people belonging to a rising power nation. We used to have a air among us and used to walk with our collars almost out. We used to have fun during these parties and we really bonded well among ourselves. We also unanimously identified ourselves as Indians and felt good about it. Our identity was solely Indian.

However an incident was to happen to change our identity.

A major set of us were to return back to India and we started packing, shopping etc and getting ready to get back home. We all arrived at Frankfurt Airport and we had a Frankfurt - Chennai flight to catch. This is where I noticed a strange pattern emerging out. Everyone in the line started sticking to a particular set of people and slowly sub groups started getting formed. Each sub group was of a particular language, people speaking Hindi stood together, people speaking Tamil stood together, people speaking Malayalam stood together, people speaking Telugu stood together, people speaking Kannada stood together and many more sub groups. This was surprising as in the years before we didn't even know what was the language spoken by others. Slowly every one started taking a new identity - an identity of region, an identity of language.

Throughout the flight it was the same story, the sub groups stuck to each other within the group. We arrived at Chennai and a new pattern started emerging - example the Tamil group was into two groups the Chennai Group and the Group traveling to Madurai, the Kannada group was into two groups the Bangalore Group and the Group traveling to Mangalore. Slowly every one started taking a new identity - an identity of Cities, an identity of Towns.

Eventually we cleared security and had to depart to our respective destinations and ahoy I can identify a new pattern emerging - example the Bangalore group was into two - three groups the Whitefield Group and the Frazer Town Group and the South Bangalore Group. Slowly but surely and definitely every one was taking a new identity - an identity of Areas, an identity of Locations.

Thus this identity that we all identify ourselves are often self imposed, self proclaimed and are always changeable to our convenience. Hence don't be rigid on your identity and have an open identity based out of an open mind.

m.m