My lot

 

The trajectory of most of my life’s worries revolve around not having a place to call home. As I stare now into yet another forced farewell from somewhere I looked forward to calling home, I am reminded once again how me and my kind are not wanted here. In one of the lame afterseasons of Arrested Development, Lucille tries to let her son know the police is no longer looking for him by adding ‘un-‘ to the ‘WANTED’ posters all over town. It’s what employers do the moment you admit you come from a lesser nation. The unpleasantness of stepping outside to realise that the barriers to full realization of your personhood do not really apply to most people is hard to convey. I remember this story I read as a child; a man walking in the cold sees a snake freezing to death. Taking pity on the poor animal, he puts it inside his shirt. The rejuvenated viper bites the man and wriggles its way out. Dying, the man asks “ Is this my reward for saving your life?” The snake replies “you did what was in your nature, and I what is in mine.” I always wonder about the moral of this story. It is deeply conservative and unmistakeably casteist. Everyone has their lot in life, determined by the accident of birth. Any attempt to live outside your station comes at your own peril. Perhaps my lot is to live in a succession of states as a perpetual outsider.  

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