Who Am I?

Perhaps, you know me, perhaps you don’t. Well I don’t blame you for the latter because I didn’t quite know myself until recently. It may sound strange or even dumbfounding that how could have I not known myself for two and twenty years of my life. Yes, it is unusual yet true.

Only a few days ago a child enquired about my identity from me while I was engaging myself in some hedonistic activity in the nearby community park. I heedlessly blurted out my name. It was only later that evening that the question struck me like a flash of thunderbolt, colour from my face seemed to have slipped off like a garment from a body. You will certainly ask me what was so emphatic about the question adhering to the fact that this question must have been put before me, I suppose, a trillion times already. It was not until that particular evening that this question dawned upon me. I will not give you an answer, rather I will put forth a question and that will be my answer. Is my identity merely confined to my name, my permanent address or perhaps even my PAN which the government shall shortly furnish? You will concur with me that most of us, if not all, or let me insinuate, accept our name as our identity or our identity as our name. Whatever be the case, the case is serious.

All right, let me not inundate you with a volley of non mundane questions and come to the point straight away. My friends call me different names, my mother does so, and my father, he too has his own set of names for me, basically I am an individual with many names and by common definition an individual with a multitude of identities. It baffles me and now you say it baffles you too. With so many identities I definitely have much ado to know myself. The basic question is who am I?

When I look into that question I don’t find a straight forward answer but what I do find is an agglomerated yet, if I might add, distinct answer. I am a son to my parents, a friend to my friends, an enemy to that uncouth fellow with long hair, a crazy admirer of that cherub whom I simply adore. But do these relations define my identity even in the broadest of terms? Am I all about being a son or an admirer, an enemy or even a prospective economist? I guess I am all of it and perhaps I am none of it. Some of the identities I have created and some have been imposed upon me.


I am aware of the fact that history shall remember me for what I have done or even what I have not done. My name will be lost in the pages of history, but let my identity live on long after I am gone. Let it not be lost with my name. Ah! that reminds me, will I lose my identity if I am unable to furnish my identity card which has my name and my permanent address scripted upon it? That is a good question, isn’t it? Dear sirs and madams protect your identity cards; you never know when it might just rob you off your identity.

I am mindful of what I like or what I loathe. I am mindful of what makes me happy and what makes me sad. I am aware of my goals and what I want to achieve in life. I am cognizant of the love around me and, possibly even more, the hatred. I do feel the sun, water, wind earth and ether, every waking and somnolent hour. I am aware of where I am and where I want to reach. I am aware of being a son, a friend, an enemy, an admirer and I am aware that I am aware of what I am aware of….I am conscious of my milieu. I am conscious of what I intend to do. I am conscious of the unconsciousness that I have had about my self. It was not until that day that I found my self… I realized who I was. Today I am conscious of who I am. I am nothing else but consciousness.