Lost.

They say grieving is a process.  Today is not one of the good days.  For once I'm finding it hard to put into words what I feel but if I could summarise I would probably say I feel lost.  Lost in the sense that someone has pulled the rug from beneath my feet.  It's as if a piece of me is missing.  And without it, I'm not sure who I am anymore.  This bold statement may sound a little overdramatic but I'm going to try and explain.

My Ba was a little piece of India sitting by the front window.  She always wore a sari.  She prayed five times a day.  She knew every spice in the kitchen cupboard and had never even once followed a recipe.  She was my culture.  She was my claim to being Asian.  And now she's gone I feel I don't have a right to label myself 'Indian'.  So I feel lost.  Like my sense of identity has been taken from me.  Because without her, I'm not really sure what I'm left with.  Logically of course, this way of thinking makes no sense.  My heritage is the blood in my veins.  It's the colour of my skin.  No one can deny a gene pool.  But somehow that's not enough.

These past few weeks, I've learnt that it's not about where you come from but who you come from.  The people in our lives are the ones who define us.  They are the ones who teach us right and wrong.  They give us a sense of tradition and they mould us into the people we become.  If we contemplate every action we do and every word we say, we realise that everything has been learnt from someone else.  So it's not surprising we feel such a great sense of loss when somebody close passes away.  Because they have been our teachers.  Our leaders.  Our conscience.

But now she's gone.  And I can't attempt to speak to her in Gujarati.  I can't ask for her biryani recipe. I can't ask for help when trying on a sari.  And nobody else knows.  So I'm culturally clueless.  And without a sense of ethnicity I feel empty.  It's an identity crisis.

So I have a plan.  I'm going to India.  I'll buy a one way ticket if necessary.  I'm going to learn the language.  The culture.  The cooking.  I'll stay for as long as it takes.  Because relying on Ba in order to claim a culture was wrong.  But I refuse to let it all slip through my fingers.

I once read that it's not about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself.  I couldn't agree more.  Because relying on a gene pool to label myself Indian was lazy.  And as much as our family dictate who we become, there comes a time when we have to take control of our own lives.  We must take responsibility and make our own choices.  So I'm making the choice to become an Indian in my own right.  This is my mission.  And Ba, I'd like to think that you'd be proud.