MAIN KAUN HOON

Happy Independence day... A wave of messages, or something akin to that, comes our way every 15th August. People proclaiming their love for India and how proud they are to be Indian… Not a bad emotion at all. We all love being Indian--the same way a man born in Australia loves being Australian, or a man born in Kenya is proud to be Kenyan... We're all proud of our identity!

What makes a person’s identity? What are the things that define our being and the life that we lead on earth. Our name... It defines what we are to be called for the rest of our lives... Our religion… It defines our way of life... Our culture... It defines our thoughts and practises… Our sex... It defines our emotions, our approach to relationships and our morals… And our country... Which pretty much defines our entire personality. So it's Name, Religion, Sex and Country... I am Samar Khan, a man born in the Islamic faith and of Indian origin. So this definition will govern almost everything that we set out to do or be in our life… But isn’t it ironic that none of this is given to us by choice, that all these labels come to us as a matter of chance… Or destiny... Something we have no control over.

No one asks us for permission before giving us a name, something that will become our calling card for the rest of our life... Something which will become the badge of our identity for ever… A newborn can't decide which country he or she should be born in, it all depends on the nationality of his parents and the choices they have made... A baby can't decide in the mother's womb the sex that he or she wants to be born as, or the religion he or she should follow for the rest of his or her life. An unborn has no control over his name, religion, sex or country, but it is these very things that will decide his identity for his entire life. And we fight so hard to protect the values that these identities represent… We are always fighting for the values of our country, we are always guarding the virtues of our religion, extolling the virtues of our sex and feeling proud of our name. We make these four labels the pillars of all our beliefs... Of all that we stand for and all that is dear to us. But do we ever stop and think, even for a moment, that we actually had no contribution in adopting these pillars of our beliefs? We didn’t have a choice in becoming who we are. And yet, we fight so hard to hold on to them.

Then shouldn’t we at least try and break the boundaries set by our name, religion, country and sex? Shouldn’t we be trying to explore who we really are deep inside and what we stand for? And does it really matter whether we’re Indians, Muslims, men or women or what our names are??? Why should it matter to anyone? And why should we be defined by something that we had no control over ??

We spend our entire lives protecting the sanctity of who we are and fighting to hold on to our values. But in reality, these values don’t belong to us. They never did. Lets not get stuck with values that have been given to us through an accident of birth. Values need to be a product of our own thoughts and choices, decisions and our reactions to their consequences. Allow the mind to explore lands beyond the ones we have inherited. Lets at least try not to let these boundaries restrict us. Let us not allow our religion, country, sex or what our name means to shackle us. Instead, lets break free from those thoughts and ideas and be willing to explore what lies beyond the four pillars of our identity…

And lets not take these pillars so seriously please!! Let it not matter what country we are born in, or what religion we follow, or what our name or sex is… Because they were never yours, they were simply given to you.