India, Dec. 1 -- At times, I feel like an alien in my country. Born and brought up in Mumbai, I was able to converse in Marathi, lived in a Marathi-speaking neighbourhood, and celebrated the festivals like everyone else around. But when the "Marathi manoos" movement raised its head, I learnt something unsettling from Dad, that we shall not be considered as "Marathi enough". My father, an adventurous man with a passion for the road, had travelled across states in his youth on a Royal Enfield. In the early 1960s during one of those journeys down south, he bought a three-acre orchard near Udupi. So, when rumours in Mumbai escalated, he decided to leave the city for good. Leave our friends, our school, and the only home we had known. Knowing it would be difficult for us to adjust to a village life in Udupi, he tried to settle us in Dharwad, a city about 300km from Udupi. We were heartbroken. But Dad tried to soften the blow by saying that we would gain a year in school, since the 11-year secondary school certificate (SSC) system in Mumbai was equivalent to the 10-year matriculation down south. That turned out to be false. We had to repeat the same grade we had already cleared. It was the first of much such disillusionment. Moreover, we did not understand Kannada. Again, after a year of struggle at a new place where we lived in a rented house, we were made to shift to the already purchased place near Udupi. This place Udupi, earlier called Udipi, was a shock to our systems. Apart from Kannada, people spoke local dialects, such as Konkani and Tulu. We were strangers there in every sense. Slowly, we began to pick up the languages thrown our way, adjusting ourselves to fit into the world around us. But no matter how much we tried, we were not "Kannadiga enough". Years later, I got married in Kashmir. There, my mother-in-law called me a Punjabi, because I was not "Kashmiri enough". In fact, she believed that everyone from outside Kashmir was a Punjabi. My sister-in-law would whisper behind my back to guests at family functions that her Bhabhi was a "Madrasi", not realising I could understand what she was saying. Gradually, I learnt Kashmiri because that was the only language my mother-in-law could speak. From Kashmir, life eventually brought me to Chandigarh, where well-meaning friends suggested I learn Punjabi to feel more at home. I learnt the Gurmukhi script so I could help my children with their homework. In the process of learning a new language, the ones I had picked up earlier vanished from my kitty. But again, I'm not "Punjabi enough". Meanwhile, two of my siblings settled in the south and built their lives there. When I visit them now, they introduce me as "our Kashmiri sister" who is not able to speak the local language, another reminder of how far I have drifted from every place I've lived in. Now, settled in Haryana, nobody wants to accept us as locals. We are Kashmiris for them. Carrying in me the sea of Mumbai, the earth of Udupi, the mountains of Kashmir, the quiet foundation of Chandigarh and the fields of Haryana, I have become a citizen of all these places. In fact, I'm a person who belongs everywhere yet is from nowhere....