Who am I?

How does it feel to get lost in a crowd of ten thousand where I will not be “Aishwariya Sarkar” or “Mumpi”?

I don’t know how it feels as I have never experienced those feelings but if I get the chance I will welcome them with my arms open.

Though, last year, I had a major accident, I somehow pulled myself out of it. Still I feel a part of me is missing. I don’t know whether it is because of losing my love or because of being a physically challenged. All I know is that I want to leave the country where I have grown up; where I have my family, friends; where I have my heartwarming memories.

I want to leave them all behind; I want to run away; I want to go to a place where I will be a “Nobody”; where people will not come to me with their advices; where people will accept me with my failures; where I don’t have to pretend to be somebody to meet the expectations of others.

Last night, my mother asked me “why do you desperately want to go to USA?”

I told her “Maa, I don’t feel anything here. A part of me has died.”

She reprimanded me by saying “you should be ashamed! When everybody is coming back to their own country; you don’t even have an ounce of respect for it!”

I kept quiet, not because I was guilty but because I knew that she will never understand me. The truth is that a part of me has died during the accident; the pain, the suffering and memories are too much for me to bear. In my homeland, I feel like a foreigner. I want to go to a place where I will be just like anyone else; where people will accept me with my failures and not judge me by my mistakes.

How will I tell her that the part that has survived is struggling through a phase of identity crisis? How will I tell her that I am trying to build myself again? How will I tell her that I don’t know who I am? All I know is that this country is not for me.