Writer Veio Pou on the struggles of living and raising children in Delhi as a ‘North-Eastern’ person

Generally, a person’s identity is deeply rooted in where one belongs. Sometimes this sense of belonging is a given but in an increasingly fluid urban space, there is also the impression of choice that comes into play. Believe it or not, even after all these years in Delhi, I still face the difficulty of being accepted as a person of the city despite accessing all kinds of rights, including the electoral franchise. I am still asked “Where are you from?” when out on the streets or meeting new people. When I answer factually, saying, “I’m from south Delhi,” they ask the same question a second time with stress on “where”. Then I understand that they wish to know which state I belong to, if not which country!

Thankfully, today most people’s mental map of India includes a region called the Northeast; but when I was a student, I often got into endless bouts of explaining that Manipur or Nagaland are not somewhere in China or Thailand! This is the experience of many people from the Northeast, especially those with predominantly East Asian features. Some years ago the governor of Arunachal Pradesh, PB Acharya, while commenting on the general ignorance of the...

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