#12: My neighbourhood

Tell us about the neighborhood that you grew up in and how it helped shape you into the kind of person you are today. (Yale and the University of Chicago)

They celebrate Diwali, Independence day, and even Christmas. The people in my neighbourhood shape my memories and feelings about the place I live. Where I live, you can always hear cars honking. Cars from other places, all going to the Dentist, who lives four houses away. You can always see people in the park, at any time of day. There are the elderly people in the morning, circumambulating around the grass and the small playground in the middle. During the day, gardeners can be seen pulling at the weeds or sitting in the shade of a banyan tree, eating their lunch. Evenings in the park are loud, as children coming back from school drop their bags on the grass and run to play cricket. Almost every day of the year, this neighbourhood is lively, but there are always exceptions to this description. For a week every year, the people fall into a silent spell as they gather under a temporary tent set up in the centre of the neighbourhood. Sitting cross-legged on the red carpets on the floor, the people, including the children, bow their heads and pray for a festival that I don't really know much about. One festival after the other, the neighbourhood is decorated for the majority of the year. On Diwali, you can hear the fireworks and see the small clay lamps placed on the balcony. On Independence Day, elders and children alike are decked up in green, orange, and white, the colours of the Indian flag. Even the tiny bangles the girls wear are arranged in a specific order: orange, white, green, orange, white, green. The most entertaining of all is Christmas, for a reason that only I have. A dressed up fat man comes in as Santa Claus, with a limp bag of gifts that he gives out to the children of the neighbourhood. I've always found Santa Claus' beard funny, the way he hastily slips the elastic bands around his ears when it falls off. The thing that makes all these events and celebrations so fun for me is because of the people. Our family has always stood out because of the fact that we're Buddhists, and we don't celebrate any of the Indian festivals the people of my neighborhood celebrate. This minor, or rather, major difference has never made me isolate myself from all the diversity in my surroundings. In fact, these differences have attracted me to everything around me. Living in a neighbourhood with people from completely different religions, cultures, and backgrounds has helped me accept things that are foreign to me, and pushed me to learn about things that I might necessarily like, but are part of my life in my neighbourhood. 

Differences don't always set people apart. They can bring us together as we teach others and learn from them too. My descriptions of everything in my neighbourhood are from the eyes of an outsider, and that was what I had always been before. Now, I sit outside on the benches in the park, watching the life and daily routines of people who I've been living around since I was three. I've become a part of my neighbourhood, and my neighbourhood has made me who I am today.