Jiena Bormliza - Yasmeen Arrif

TITLE      Sometimes its just easier being a Bormlisa

INTRO

                We as human beings

NEED to categorise -

               

we all categorise : at school

                                physical characteristics

                                interest

                                race

                all boxes we need to frame the world around us

                easiest way to do it is slot people into it

                first glance :        slot

                in the adult world these categories continue into what we do and certain assumptions we build around that.

So after putting someone into a slot at first glance

We can provide more details we like to fill in : by entering into a conversation

That enables us put to Mr or Ms X  in yet another slot

ASK A QUESTION GIVE A LABEL ....and so it goes on,

We are building a clearer picture about the person

more interestingly finding areas of commonality with them....

And hey presto we have a conversation.

BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN .....

The answers to the stock questions

arent as straight forward?

And rather than oiling the wheels of a

new conversation you stop them dead.

MY dreaded conversation stopper is:

WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?

It is at that point that I have to take in a deep breath and

OFF I go:

I am originally from Burma, of Indian descent….

.... Burma is just west of Thailand, bordered by Bangladesh to ITS west
and China to the north.

….. Yes where there is a military junta and its democratic leader has been under house arrest for the last 20 years.

….. Yes, that beautiful woman  Aung San Su Kyi

My parents migrated to Pakistan, where I was born.

…. yes Benazir Bhutto was sexier… yes, shame she was blown up.

I grew up in Malaysia

- I spent 2 years in Borneo and 7 in West Malaysia. 

I went to expat school there, where all kids were destined for the wide blue yonder after secondary school.

SO

I went to the States and spent a year there.

I came to Malta in the early 80s as a teenager, when my father was posted here as a Pilot with Air Malta

And since then Malta has featured prominently in my life.

And has become a base for my family and myself

and now Im a Maltese citizen.

You see what I mean about being a conversation stopper?

Although there always has been a certain freak value or curiousity about my roots. 

Being an Indian Burmese Pakistani- Maltese who grew up in Malaysia,

I have never found a slot : that I quite fitted into.

SO WHAT PART OF MY HERITAGE TRAIL IS REALLY RELEVANT?

I no longer have any real links with my Indian ancestry -

- 6 generations down the line from Gujerati royal merchants

whose trading routes thrived under the British Raj –

Yet my first visit to India was an entirely surreal experience.

Never set foot in the place but everything was strangely familiar

Because grew up on my fair share of Bollywood films got on well with my smattering of Hindi

Now I consider Burma to be my emotional home the very basis of my identity.

I speak the language, I have family….

But when I am there -  I am an Indian to them but more than anything, a foreigner.

In Pakistan, ,

- even though I was born in the town where Benazir Bhutto was blown up –

I am a foreigner

As a lapsed Muslim, I'm considered an infidel and the political reality there is entirely incompatible with my life choices: divorced, cohabiting, with a child out of wedlock.

But I spent the first years of my life there.  I have some happy child hood memories that aren’t constrained and twisted by this new found conservatism.

SO no, I'm not part of the Mohammeden invasion that’s allegedly threatening these shores.

In England, people assume that my family must have owned a corner store somewhere. And of course I would have some racial axe to grind.

Sorry, NO on both counts.

So these are all the slots I have failed to fall in to.

In failing that slot test, you get relegated to the category of the OTHER.

The many challenges you negotiate as an OTHER

helps you see that the world is not just about the

RIGHT WAY AND THE WRONG WAY

Or US and THEM, although we find it much easier to see it as such

We hang on to what is most familiar to us in

FEAR of what is unfamiliar.

BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS

Some find it easier to really GET where I am from.

I used to live in Safi

- and soon after we moved in

one of the neighbours, asked where I was from.

My friend explained that I was minn BOORMA. 

Suddenly his eyes lit up and it all made sense: 

AHHHHHH Bormlisa! Diik?

Iva, jiena Bormlisa!

Its good to be finally understood!