'Your correspondent is thus a Delhite, an English-speaker, half a Brahmin, half a Tamilian, a Hindu culturally, an atheist by choice, a Muslim by heritage. But the identity that threads these multiplicities together is at once the most powerful and most amorphous: she is an Indian': Pallavi Aiyar, Beijing [Images] correspondent for The Hindu and author of the recently released book on China, Smoke and Mirrors.

So where are you from?

A simple question, yet the answer is not as simple. Questions of identity, already an area of complexity for Indians, are getting more enigmatic. As international trade picks up, Indians are becoming increasingly agnostic towards national and continental boundaries. Immigration and Naturalisation Service data says the number of Indians entering the United States between 1981 and 1990 was more than in the first 80 years of the 20th century.

We travel and live where economic interests take us. No other people, not even the Chinese today or the English of the 19th century, have experienced the geographical breadth and depth of mobility as Indians have over the last couple of decades. 

Let's start with me. I was born of Maharashtrian parents who had moved to Uttar Pradesh [Images] from their family home in Madhya Pradesh [Images]. I speak Hindi and English and understand Marathi. I went to college in Bombay and then in the east coast of the United States. I have, at different times, made New England [Images], California, New York, London [Images] and Washington DC my home, and I now live in the frigid cornfields of the mid-western prairies. 

Take this acquaintance of mine. He is from Hosur, Tamil Nadu, and has lived in Japan [Images] and then the United Kingdom. No wonder his children, who grew up in all three places, have a difficult time answering where they are from.

For most of us, including perhaps you the reader of this column, the stone has rolled so much that it has gathered layers of dust � cultural dust that, when viewed introspectively, provides a kaleidoscope at once spectacular and dizzying.

There is nothing stationary. The more you move and the longer you live away from your origins, the more you change and so does the place of your origin. At any given time, when you stop and look around, you realise it is like that carousel ride where you look forward to the spin but, unbeknownst to you, when you stop the surroundings have changed and the path homeward is elusive.

My realisation that I was really not from any place, but rather a modern day nomad, a gypsy of sorts, came about on the evening of August 28, 2002. That evening, I was on a BA flight from Moscow [Images] to London. Looking forward to the dulling sleep that comes as the plane ascends, I was awakened by an Englishman's midland accent. 'Where are you from?' he asked.

My answers ranged from Richmond-Upon-Thames to Ronkonkoma to Renukoot. The Englishman would have none of it. He said that I don't sound, look or dress as one from any one of those places. In response to his stubborn curiosity, I closed my eyes and play-acted asleep.

The Englishman's questioning started me off on a study of people's whereabouts. I looked at the Italians and the Irish. They came with no desire to go back. They wanted to be Americans. The Vietnamese and the Chinese left their homeland with a desire to get away, flee. Theirs was more of an egalitarian pull.

But, none of these cohorts seemed similar to mine. I started realising that the Indian immigrant experience has been extraordinary. Unlike the Irish or the Chinese, the Indians were not fleeing from famines or political tribulations. Theirs was a professional, an intellectual, pull.

They dreamt not of Queens or the alleys of San Francisco, but of a University campus, a career in a clinic or a place that would let their technical skills soar; they dreamt of a suburban home, a two-car garage and green meadows for their children to play in. Also, the Indians came to America to experience all things American, but seldom strove to actually become Americans.  

Padma Rangaswamy's Namaste America provides a scholarly analysis of Indian immigrants in Chicago. The book quotes a young Indian, brought up in the United States but bound by inexplicable ties to her native India, struggling to understand who she is.
My dress is mostly American, my eating habits are mostly Indian. And I have become comfortable saying "I don't have an identity." It sometimes frustrates me when people tell me I have to have an identity. I don't know. Maybe we're in a limbo stage when we're not going to have one.

The struggle for identity is not specific to Indian immigrants. Ruth Hill Useem, a Michigan professor, came up with the term 'Third Culture Kids' for children of diplomats and expatriates who spent time away from home in a foreign culture. She started tracking a common pattern that existed amongst these kids.

Ann Baker Cottrell, a sociologist at San Diego State University, studied TCKs further. Her research shows that TCKs were on the whole more successful than their homegrown peers. They consistently had a higher degree of education and were often employed in the top ranks of their profession. (Barack Obama [Images] is a TCK.)

TCKs are more culturally aware, bilingual, and � so it is said � fiercely independent. There is a chameleon aspect to their personalities, and they adapt to different societies with ease.  The TCK literature shows that you and I, our kids and others have much in common with Professor Useem's hypothesis.

Perhaps we should be calling ourselves Third Culture Indians. We belong somewhat to India and somewhat to the US and in that sense, exist in a third culture that juxtaposes the two. In my case and that of others who have moved across coasts and sometimes beyond, the complexity deepens. Over the course of time a blend starts to develop that leaves us in a class apart, albeit not in an elitist sense.

Labels for this blend have been created. Non-Resident Indian is one. I abhor that phrase for its minimalism. Indian-American is another. I find it escapist. Anytime I hear 'Indian-American', I murmur 'Mahishasura', the son of a king and a water buffalo in Hindu mythology. (I do not mean to suggest which one is which.)

So, where do we go from here? I do not know. The journey towards finding one's identity remains a largely personal one. Cognitive psychology defines identity as the capacity for self-reflection and awareness of self. Pallavi Aiyar, the correspondent for The Hindu, cites three religions and one caste strain in her DNA, two provincial locations and one language preference. She resides in China and once lived in London. But she puts all that away and calls herself an Indian.

I am not there yet. I still go and stand tall upon an atoll looking out, wondering if home is out towards the seas or right there in the lagoon. But the day does not seem far when after failed attempts to provide an identity to my internal mosaic, I will fall back on one of two options available to me. And I am beginning to sense which one it will end up being. 

Girish Rishi, a Chicago-based writer, can be reached at girishrishi@hotmail.com