The 'where are you from' conundrum

My wife and I are fond of saying that we are vagabonds- we would go wherever the opportunities will take us. And the more we move countries, the more difficult it is to answer the very simple question- Mohit- where are you from?

I have tried to think about this hard. I was born in Faridabad, a bustling industrial town in Haryana that could be called the Gurgaon of the seventies, but before I was one, we moved to Bombay. I lived there till I was 4, then we moved to Lucknow. This is where I had my schooling and my most formative years were spent there. At 17, I moved for College to Delhi and stayed there till I was 24, moved to Dehradun to teach at Doon School for a couple of years, after which I did an MBA in Manila, Philippines. After my MBA, I briefly worked in India and the Philippines before being hired as a Consultant based in Singapore where I spent five years. My last two years of consulting were literally spent in Malaysia, taking the Monday morning flight to Kuala Lumpur from Singapore and taking the Friday night flight back. Last year, we moved to Boston and have lived here since. I have an Indian citizenship, Permanent Resident-ship in Singapore, my wife is Filipino and my parents now reside not in Lucknow where I grew up but in Jaipur where they grew up.

So where exactly am I from? The closest answer would be Lucknow. I spent 12-13 years there, the schooling was excellent, the atmosphere was very multi-cultural (Lucknow has a sizeable Muslim population) and the values of hard work, respect for elders and the care for the family were instilled in me there. But again, Delhi is where I grew in terms of perspective and outlook. Doon is where I had my first real job and Singapore is where I learnt the ropes of consulting and the corporate world. When I land in Delhi, I feel just as much at home as I do when I land in Singapore. In fact, Lucknow is where I may be most distant from as I do not have many friends there anymore. Friends from Lucknow have moved all over, from Johannesburg to Hong Kong to London! I participate as vigorously in the debate about Singapore's competitiveness as I do when talking about the liberalization in Delhi or the political quagmire in the Philippines. I feel passionate about all these subjects as I have had close links with all these places and they all have been home to me at some point in time.

As I write this, I wonder whether I do need to answer this question at all. In this day and age, it may be a trifle obsolete. All I know is this- there needs to be a constancy of purpose and a strong character with well ingrained values- as long as we have that, irrespective of wherever we go, that place will become our home. So one could cheer for Manny or Johnny as loudly as one does for Sachin or Sehwag- so what if the fans of baseball dont understand cricket or vice versa, I know I could be a potential 'bridge' and that makes me feel pretty good.