BETA

Many of you must feel the same way as I do and I am expressing my feeling through Oru Paper hoping to let some of you know that you are not alone.

How many of you live a fake life with a made up smile and wished things were better or different than they are now. I know everyone has problems but some seem to be unsolvable. As Sri Lankan Tamils, many feel that they do not have an identity and feel as if they do not belong to the Western Culture as well as the Tamil culture. Is this because we were bought up in the middle of the two with a very diverse entourage? Or is it because we try to fit into the two cultures which are involved in our lives?

There are things that some of us find hard to accept from the Western culture and the same happens in the Tamil culture.

The most difficult situation takes places when there are not many people who understand this.

Many Tamil parents want their children to be bought up like they were bought up many years ago in a completely different continent. They understand that this is not the same country and that things work differently here but they need to understand that their children are mixing with this culture more than the one they would want us to keep up with. There is a lack of understanding and the chaos starts here.

Our young Tamils want to have the life of may be a Non-Tamil friend. They want to have the freedom to express themselves, the freedom to do what ever makes them happy, the liberty from other Tamil adults back chatting about you and the dirty looks in the streets, the choice to wear anything they would like, the right to study what their interest drives them into, the self-determination to be themselves!

When children begin to take control of their own life whether parents like it or not, that’s it! Everything goes horribly wrong and the biggest mistakes take place. There is no one that you can talk to, no one to turn to, no-one to understand you or even to make you feel better because no one is in your shoes. A huge wall builds between your family and you. There is nothing that you can agree on as you are seeing the world from a completely different prospective. That’s when you find someone who is exactly the way you want them to be. They understand, support, give importance to your thoughts and for the first time ever you feel respected. But obviously this is not accepted at home because you are doing something beyond the culture’s barriers.

Wouldn’t our parents want to understand why all this chaos began?

Because they treat us as their children in order to keep their heads high up with their GCSEs, A Levels and highly professional degree but failed to see us as individuals with a heart and emotions leaving us with envies, dreams to fulfil and the desire to live our life to the maximum flying high in the sky rather then being stuck in a narrow box called the culture! There are many aspects of our culture which are meaningful but can the two cultures be mixed? Is there any ways to accomplish this by making them understand us and please them at the same time? Is there any way to be happy being Tamil living in a Western country?