“Mi trattano come un intruso”

Intruso: (ITALIAN sm/f) (estraneo) intruder, (ad un ricevimento) gatecrasher

Example:

“mi trattano come un intruso” “They treat me as if I had no right to be there.”¹

I was thinking about penning something but could not think of anything viable. Then suddenly it struck me, how about writing about being an outsider the whole life and coping with that.

My earliest memories include running around the house and getting kicked out of the kitchen by mom. So that lesson was engraved deep inside me: You are an outsider in her realm, which included the kitchen and most of the house, and you got to be complying with her terms. As time passed and my grazing fields expanded, I was an outsider at our own farm. Trust me, the farmhands always considered it their domain and I, a potential heir of the land, was an interloper.

The next degree of the treatment came when I started meeting other kids from the village of Velliappally. (I translate the name vaguely as Silver Church). Even though my zip code and address says Velliappally, I was a kid from the distant farmland for those kids who lived near the village center in residential developments. In fact I remember someone commenting that I would not be eligible for playing in the village soccer team because I belong to another place, which is on the other side and farther away from my home. What would I have given to get recognized in the group!

Things didn’t change much in the school where those who live within the city, (of Pala – no, I am not giving any translation this time, it is a short enough name) all of us who are from the suburb/farm-lands as uncivilized barbarians. The only thing barbaric about us is the places that we were hailing from, but that too, only as perceived by them. We just labeled them wimpy and assured ourselves of our superiority.

The feeling of being a gatecrasher never ended from then on. When I went to a boarding school in a different city, I was an automatic outsider and no economics teacher could resist making me the butt of some joke on my town with a story that involved a big time bank from my town getting liquidated around fifty years ago. Oh Jesus, please save us sons and daughters of Pala from the legacy of the Pala Central Bank, like you saved us all from the original sin.

Next, when I went to St. Aloysius College) in Mangalore, it didn’t help being a mallu (Short form of Malayalee, a native of my state Kerala) when there was nothing cooler for my friends than cracking mallu jokes, targeting the stereotypical accent, migrant nature etc.² Again, it was a new city with new languages and I had to deal with that. Well, I always do.

Later, at the engineering school at Adoor or working in Bangalore after that, being treated as a gatecrasher has never changed. That is one thing that is constant with all the places that I have ever lived in. Again, I must admit that at each place, I have managed to assimilate fast and become a part of the place. But in my experience, the nomadic nature of my life has made me move again by the time I gather the courage to call myself a local boy. In fact I have moved 13 times in my life. Read this in conjunction with the fact that “The average American moves 12 times in his or her lifetime (U.S. Census Bureau)”³.

As you may have read already in the “Ingress Into The Land Of The Free (And The Home Of The Brave”⁴ article, I was a total stranger in Chicago when I arrived here a year ago. The challenge had been steeper and the outside-ness has been more profound but the training that I received throughout my life to be a happy outsider, right from when I was thrown out of the kitchen for playing soccer inside, has enabled me to keep myself confident and to embrace the opportunities that destiny is providing me.

Reference:

1. http://dictionary.reverso.net/italian-english/intruso
2. Read more mallu jokes here at http://copystuff.blogspot.com/2006/01/mallu-jokes.html it has an awesome collection, gathered by a mallu, for sure.
3. http://www.mayflower.com/moving/relocation-services/moving-tips/facts-about-moving.htm
4. http://domesticavalanche.blogspot.com/2007/04/ingress-into-land-of-free-and-home-of.html