Not too many people that have met me in the last 10 years know this, but from the time I was born until the time I was about 20, I went by the name "Paul." In fact, my name is supposed to be spelled Palash but my father decided to add that extra letter to make it easier for me to go by the name Paul and assimilate. In a way, that name became a way for me to hide who I was. When questioned about my ethnicity or culture, I would run behind it and hide. I would proudly declare that I'm an "American" (Read: white) and that I happily rejected all that Indian stuff because ew they smell, they only eat curry, and they all have thick accents and don't speak English well enough. I was prejudiced against my own people because I was afraid to be one of them.
When I was younger, I wasn't really accepted into the Indian cliques. I grew up in a town that had an absolutely booming Indian population and because of that, most of the kids my age we all immigrants and all Gujurati. For one reasons beyond my control, most of them didn't like me. They used to say something to me in the halls at school and then giggle condescendingly to themselves and whisper in a language that I didn't understand. I never felt wanted by that group. Growing up, I ignored this part of me and threw myself into trying to fit in with whatever group I could latch onto. This took longer than you would think it did. I had to wear many masks to try and only show the parts of me that I thought people would accept. I used humor to deflect. A few people saw through it (and are still my friends), but for the most part, people saw what I let them.
Paul had almost become a character. A role I was playing in order be the person I thought they wanted me to be. To be the person I thought I wanted to be. I was almost 20 years old before I was comfortable enough to start peeling back the onion. Funny enough, as I got more comfortable with this newest cast of characters, the people that ultimately would become my closest friends, something happened that would lead me to where I needed to be. Something happened by chance that led me to me. For the first time, I discovered the complete person and was happy, comfortable, and strong enough to embrace it.
So unbeknownst to me, one of my good friends referred to me as "Indian Paul," not to my face, but when he referred to me to others. When I found out about I was incredibly offended. He didn't mean any malice by it; it was just a way for him to distinguish me from any other Pauls that he might've known. But to me, it represented everything that I had been hiding from. It represented everything I had denied until then. It was like a huge scar on my face. I thought if I didn't talk about it, maybe no one would notice. When I found out that I was being called Indian Paul, all the walls I had built up as a teenager crumbled. In an instant, the very scar that I had been denying was my defining characteristic.
At the time, I was infuriated. Out of some misguided spite, I asked everyone to call me by my real name. It seemed less offensive to me than Indian Paul. Just the word Indian was something I had grown to shun. But of course, in retrospect, this moniker that I so abhorred became my liberation. My friend (who today remains to be one of my best friends; my brother from another mother) had forced me to deal with my self image issues without even knowing what he had done.
After asking all my friends to use my given name, I realized my fear was my own. Sure, they mumbled and grumbled about it at first but in the end, no one cared. At all. Not even one bit. Armed with this knowledge, I started to let my inner desi out. After about a ten year hiatus, I watched the Bollywood movie Kal Ho Naa Ho. I cried. Of course, I got over the usual notion that Bollywood movies are incredibly overdramatic (which they are) and I fast forwarded through most of the songs (which I eventually came to love) but in the end, I really came to love the story. As a young boy, I used to watch these movies with my mom and I guess that romantic side of me was borne of these moments. The transformation had officially begun.
I'm about 14 years into the experiment as Paulash and I have to say, I'm much happier than I was. There's so much I've learned that I wish I could go back and tell to Paul. So much about being yourself and not worrying about what other people think and that it's OK to be yourself, no matter what everyone else expects you to be. Maybe then the internal conflict wouldn't have taken so long to quell. Maybe my life would have involved less tumult.
Actually, you know what? As much as I pine to go back and change things, I think maybe those battles were necessary to bring mere where I am right now. Maybe I needed to go through that in order to really find out who I am and what I want to strive towards. I guess I won't ever really know the answers to these questions, but what I do know is that right now, this place is where I want to and should be. Not every day is puppy dogs and rainbows, but you know what? Most of them are. I may have not won every battle, but I've definitely won the war.
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