Identities are fast blurring

I want to talk about identities which I have been mulling over for a long period of time. The question of identity is important for each and every individual because it deals with defining our ownselves. It is about who we are and how others know us to be. Of course, there is no one identity that we carry or that defines us...there are multiple identities and at different points of time in our life we cling on to those. I was wondering about how identity remains crucial even in the modern era as it was in the olden days. In the past, especially in a diverse socio-cultural context like India, caste was the basis for defining one's identity. One's work and skills were also known by the same. Has anything changed so many years after that? I think that some things have changed drastically. One major turnaround has been the phenomenon of blurring identities. That means identities are no longer clear ...reason being that they are multiple and we may not be really sure which one we want to use to depict ourselves at a certain point of time. For eg: if I talk about myself...there is no one clear identity that I have at this moment. I am what? A student, a daughter, a marathi, a friend or may be just a person who wants to know what her identity actually is.

With globalization, one thing that was bound to happen was the migration of people from one place of residence to the other. This created the problem of identities. The man who migrated from Bihar in search of work to Mumbai, after a few years was not sure whether we belonged to Bihar or to Mumbai. This is the dilemma that many young people today are facing because the place of their birth is different and the place where they have spent their life is different. So they might end up having two identities and they might not be sure which one they are loyal to. Finally, the question of identity is linked to that of loyalty.

So, summing up my take on this issue I just want to say that identities have become blurred. Today, they are not visible that clearly and vividly. We are just trying to locate them from a mixed bag...finding out which one suits us better...for the moment!