A struggle to find my space without losing my identity.
I was usually never asked this question, because I grew up in Mumbai. When I moved here four years ago, and people started asking me this, it began to create anxiety in me. I felt a kind of panic because of a few encounters I'd had, especially with white men. They would say things like ‘you're pretty for an Indian chick’, or ‘wow you sound really curry’.
These were all follow up responses to the question ‘Where are you from?’.
So of course this question is stressful. My accent was quite thick as well, and I'd have to repeat myself a lot. The longer I live here the more I can hear the way I speak change. Initially I was very determined not to lose my accent, but eventually I had to let it go a little, to make my conversations here easier.
Now that my accent has changed, I thought I could change my response to saying: ‘I'm from Melbourne’. This is home to me now too. Whenever I'm out of the city or interstate and someone asks me where I'm from, I’ve tried saying Melbourne a few times, but every time they're like ‘nah, but where are you really from?’
In those moments I don't know what to say. I feel like it's a way of being told I couldn't be from there, because that's not where I look like I belong? But on the other hand, more than once I have been told something or other about how I'm ‘not like other Indians’, or how my ‘English is really good for an Indian’... it's like I have to pick between: ‘Why aren't you white?’ or ‘Why aren't you more exotic?’
It’s a struggle trying to find my space here without losing my identity. It's so strange that such a simple question can make you feel so completely displaced.