Knowing "Who am I ?"

“The identity of one changes with how one perceives reality”~ Vitu Jeyaloganathan

But what exactly is this reality? - The one that we see, understand, believe or what society, educational institution, our family or friends builds it! It is crucial for one to have conversation with one own self to understand his/her own identity which more or less makes the person that we are. The second intervention with the boys from the government school in Dwarka began with the first session on “Identity”.

After the energizer and agreements, the participants were given a sheet of paper having questions on “myself” which ranged from favorite food, to their dreams to their likes and dislikes and others. This was followed by inviting the participants to draw their “identity map” where in they were supposed to write the words, feelings, thoughts associated with them. Unlike the previous intervention which also involved all boys group, here only one pair came together on the shared identity of “boy” which left me wondering about how strong is ‘gender identity’ for the boys? 

Few of the interesting things came up while the participants shared their identity maps with the large circle.

“I help my mother in household work”

“I am very scared of the teachers in the school”

One of the participant addressed his parents as “Mere priyay mataji… mere priyay pitaji..”

“I felt really good sharing things about myself in front of everyone”

“I was scared and little overwhelmed as to whom I would be pairing up with, how will I talk?”

“Between us, except for three things everything was same. It was interesting to talk on how similar we are. I didn’t know this though we are in same class”

“I felt sad that no one was paired with me.”

Then it was explained to the participants how the identity is not stable/stationary it keeps changing with the age and phases of life. In order to explain how important is to question and understand identity during adolescence, we shared the story of “Mahatma Gandhi’s adolescence”  Another interesting activity followed, where in each participant had a chance to share one positive quality about themselves in the larger circle. Sharing positive aspects is not that easy which was clearly indicated here, as most of the participants ended up sharing how good they are in studies and how much they like studying and it was only after a round and 2, few of them shared that – they like drawing, dancing, playing cricket etc.

In the last activity, the participants were divided in pairs where they were supposed to ask 6 questions to each other, helping them to know each other and then present their partners in the larger circle. It was very interesting to see how creatively they introduced each other, it seemed that each had a unique friend and they knew each other really well.

This group is very different from the last set of participants, they are little shy, wanting to share but something seems to stop them however once again I could understand how important it is to talk about oneself and yes it does bring to reality.