Shards of Broken Shackles

Reflecting on India's 77th Year of freedom from the British Raj

Dear Readers,

Welcome to Berkana! I have lately been meditating on the importance to arrive at my roots with as much conviction as I do in my present. I feel at home in my present self, although the impermanence of identity has haunted me as long as I have developed self-awareness. We all are made of layers both conscious and unconscious, weaved into our existence for generations. There are certainties about us, the visible part of familial and cultural conditioning, that we recognize within us. But then there are other parts that are buried beneath a million peels of the subconscious, becoming inherently a part of our experience, and hence shape our character. Therefore some of what we are can be explained with plain logic, like checking a list of labels that society has created to categorize a human, but some of our inclinations remain unexplained. For instance, I fail to understand my obsessive fascination with colonial architecture and artifacts, or my love for neo-classical music …