Identity crisis

A person wrote on his matrimony profile on defining a suitable match – “Preferably a doctor or an engineer…” Sounds funny isn’t it?

I was talking about this topic with my wife and she had contention on the subject not on the content. I gave it another try – I told her, remember Golmaal old movie? In that movie Utpal Dutt has a perception – people with mustache are good in character. That is a way of creating a perception, an identity. Let me put more types of identities – say I identify myself as an Indian. You identify yourself as a CA or a Marwari or a born Bengali. These are all identities. What if one fine day morning we remove these identities of each individual? Would world be a better place? Perhaps yes. Let me give you an example –

Say two people waking up in Gaza strip and Jerusalem on Monday morning – both of them identifying themselves as

A – Muslim, inhabitant of Palestine, suppressed etc

B – Jew, Original inhabitants of Jerusalem etc

If on a Monday morning A and B both only know that he/she is supposed to do xyz activity. Remember this activity is not killing the other. The activity is for survival and comfortable life perhaps peaceful and progressive life. Would there be a solution to Middle Eastern problem?

Take another example – if followers of ISIS forget they are following the commandments written in Kuran! They get into the crisis of identifying themselves as someone who is fighting a holy war. Would we have a solution in Syria?

In the context of religion, if every human being forgets that he / she is associated with a religion – though keeps on following the suggested practices – wouldn’t we have far lesser organized, religion based crimes in the world?

In political sense the identification can be – he is a democrat and she is a republican. Should we define ourselves or others in these lines? Why should one be identified by such labels?

Let me go a step further, what if we stop identifying ourselves from Nation A or Nation B, we just remain a nobody.

The crisis are mostly created by the identities we have created around ourselves, isnt it? If we get rid of our identities wouldn’t that crisis be a good solution?

At a very basic level, the identity could be – I am an engineer or you are from Vernacular medium of education. Yes these small things become identity and at times do or die reasons; recent example is Rohith Vemula. In India we identify people with their castes too. The other definitions are – I own a BMW, he has a Maruti 800 1998 model and that guy doesnt even have a car. I am rich, he is poor. On me this could be – com’on I write blogs! I have an identity on the internet. Isn’t it too shallow?

We need to get rid of all these labels.

Well, I had written the sentence “Preferably a doctor or an engineer…” on my matrimony profile. I had most serious discussions with an Arts graduate, I got married to a commerce graduate. That sentence I wrote because some or the other site made it mandatory to write partner preference, my full sentence was – “… There has to be understanding and matching of thoughts…” I wrote those two criteria because I after stretching enough I was not able to complete some word limit, I think 200 words!