Thursday, October 14, 2010: Happy Birthday to YOU!

During my time in Ahmedabad I was both divorced from my usual surroundings and accompanied by a group of people who I had barely gotten to know in the first residency. The combined influence of these foreign environs and unfamiliar group dynamics had left me questioning myself both as an individual and in relation to the broader group of students. This experience was an unfamiliar one for me as my behaviours back home are so entrenched that I rarely stop to think about how they define me as a person. In contrast, my time in Ahmedabad took me far enough outside my usual surroundings that I was forced to take a much closer look at how I defined myself.

October 14^th was Melissa’s birthday. In order to make sure this moment was a memorable I corralled several students and we set off to the Brown and Happy chocolate shop in search of a birthday cake. We found two delicious chocolate cakes which we brought back to the hotel, and surprised Melissa with a barely in-tune but highly energetic rendition of “happy birthday to you”. Everyone seemed a little more relaxed after partaking in this ritual (which I suspect reminded us all of home). What I found most interesting about this experience was the manner in which it served to reinforce my sense of self-identity. Interestingly, I found that this reinforcement of self was not a result of the ritualized birthday celebration itself, but rather an outcome of the process that led up to it.

When travelling in unfamiliar places and with unfamiliar groups people often have the opportunity to reinvent or redefine ourselves through our interactions and behaviour towards others. While I could name other such examples throughout the trip, the birthday cake experience was particularly memorable for me because it represented the first time I made a conscious choice to define my identity in India in parallel to how I defined myself within my usual surroundings: as a person who was thoughtful, considerate, and cared about ensuring that others were able to have the best experience possible. This moment, in turn, provided a self-reference point for my behaviour for the rest of the trip, and allowed me to construct a role to play within the group dynamic.