Mero afno identity pani cha ra? Do I even have an identity, Or is identity something granted Only after approval? Growing up between languages, a Nepali home whispering familiarity and Assamese school corridors echoing another belonging, I walked without knowing which voice was truly mine. In Delhi, I began to see myself through other people’s curiosity, assumptions and ignorance. At home, I was understood without explanation. Outside, I learned to translate myself - my name, my accent, my existence carried an explanation before the introduction. Somewhere between greetings and silences, I began to shrink parts of myself, folding identity carefully So it would fit into conversations that were never made for me. No one taught me that a self must be protected, that identity is something fragile, constantly negotiated under the gaze of a mainstream world that decides who belongs easily and who must explain why.

They celebrate diversity in slogans but fear it at dining tables. They romanticise hills and cultures yet question the people who carry them. So I kept moving adjusting, adapting, becoming quieter, trying to preserve something unnamed inside me. Only later did I realise that identity is not always loud. Sometimes it survives softly - in food, in memory, in the language that returns When I am alone. And now I ask again, Mero afno identity pani cha ra? I find it just here with me, When I was submitting my research paper on gundruk, Writing about familiar memory, home and surroundings, It had always existed within me.