Sociological Autobiography: How the Society Shaped My Personality

Sociological Autobiography – Devika Dinesh. I’m a kid who’s always had everything work out for me. I’ve almost always got my way. I’ve grown up in a comfortable, sheltered environment, exposed to almost no negative aspects of ‘real life’. Being a girl, being brown, belonging to a so-called ‘lower’ caste… none of these identity markers, that constrain so many others, have ever held me back or put me at a disadvantage. I got lucky like that. To be able to grow up loved and cared for, to experience childhood and adolescence without a care in the world. And in this essay on my life, I’ll attempt to take a look at the social factors that enabled me to be where I am today. It is, in a way, an attempt to sit back and check my privileges and the implications of my societal standing/position.

I was born on the 25th of May, 2001, to a young, middle class couple, in the beautiful coastal city of Calicut, Kerala. But this was not to be the city, or even the country, I’d grow up to call home. 4 months later, I was on my first plane ride to UAE to meet my dad for the first time.

I was named Devika Dinesh, and not Devika Kunhippanan, which was tradition in my family until then. Everyone in my family from my grandparents to my older cousin had taken the surname Kunhippanan or KP for short. Hence it is noteworthy that I am the first in the family to get my father’s name as my surname. It is also of note that this has become a trend among many of my parents’ peers. This change can be associated to the fact that my dad is the first college graduate in the family, who had also, by then, moved out of the family home. We used to follow the joint family system, where the head of the household is in charge of managing family funds and all income is pooled together. However, this changed from my father’s time and is reflected in my name.

My father, Dineshan Kunhippanan, is perhaps the most classic example of the pursuit of the ‘American Dream’, or in the Keralite context, the ‘relative from Dubai’. Kerala has had economic linkages with the Arab world from pre-colonial times due to its geographical location. This relation has only continued in the modern era, as is evident by the large-scale migration that takes place to date. My paternal grandfather passed away when my dad was only 10 years old, and so his eldest brother took on the role of the head of the household at 16. It was this brother who’d later migrate to UAE, finance my dad’s education and finally, enable him to migrate to Dubai as well. My dad graduated from Kannur Government Engineering College with a B. Tech. in Civil Engineering as was expected of hardworking students in the 90s. Within a year or so, he’d got a job in Dubai.

My mother, Sujitha Dineshan, on the other hand had a very different childhood, having grown up in the cosmopolitan city of Calicut. She grew up in a nuclear family model, with both parents working full-time. This was somewhat of a rarity in the 70s and 80s, and so theirs was the family that’d be among the earliest to get electricity, buy a TV set, and so on among their contemporaries. Having grown up in a relatively progressive environment, it is rather surprising that my mom has chosen to remain a home-maker. This may stem from the fact that, having been exposed to aspects of modernity early on, both good and bad, she had realized the possible neglect that children of working couples face. Having watched her mother walk the fine line of work-life balance, she’d chosen to devote herself to building our home and allowing our childhood to remain encased in all its wonderful magic.

So, while the patriarchy did not prevent her from working, it did give her the option to choose not to work. This was, of course, a choice my dad never had, because men are expected to earn for the household.

Cultural Frames in Which I Was Growing Up

Hence, I have grown up in the ideal patriarchal model of the man earning and the woman staying at home. However, the values attached to patriarchy and its inherent sexism has not been passed down to me and my brother. This has everything to do, of course, with the fact that we lived in one of the most diverse and cosmopolitan cities in the world. My brother and I have always been treated the same way, given the same opportunities, taught the same values. Individuality is given foremost importance in a society like that of Dubai which is highly class and merit based. I’ve grown up with Western notions of individual will and human agency being the foremost determinant of one’s life due to the social circles and the environment I’ve interacted with. Liberalism and giving all humans the freedom of choice are values I hold very dearly.

This applies to almost every aspect of my life. I support free markets, rights of all individuals to identify with any gender(s) they choose, rights of individuals to choose where to live, how to live, whom to love, and basically, give almost no importance to concepts of societal pressures. This, of course, is because I have been privileged enough to not have to face much social resistance at any point in my life.

The impersonal, and almost isolated lives that people in metropolitan cities lead means that no one puts their nose in your business and vice versa. Especially in a country like the UAE where a majority of its population are migrants, living with the constant thought at the back of their minds of returning home ‘one day’, no one really has the time or interest to look at and judge another’s lives. Not in the same interconnected way in which Indian society works.

This concept of returning to one’s home ‘one day’ is something that heavily influences migrant lives. This is the thought that prevents them from fully integrating to the host country and its culture. It’s the reason why migrants rent instead of buying property. In UAE, of course, immigrants are not granted citizenship and hence cannot buy property permanently. However, it is not economically viable to buy instead of renting, even if it were possible.

So, when the parents themselves see the country as only a money-making phase of their lives, children like me also grow up constantly reminded of the fact that this is not, and never will be, home. I got a real taste of this frequent reminder when the global financial crisis struck. My dad hadn’t got his salary in months and so he quit his job and decided to start his own company along with a group of his college friends who were in similar situations. At this point we couldn’t afford to continue living in UAE, and so what was supposed to be a mini-vacation to meet relatives in India turned out to be a year-long stay.

Hundreds of people had left the country in this period, and we were one of the few lucky ones who got to come back. Personally, however, I didn’t feel all that lucky as the constant shifting and the general uncertainty that defined that year of our lives pushed me right out of my well-crafted comfort zone. I realized that Dubai can never be home in a permanent sense. This was perhaps the start of the inevitable identity crisis that all third-culture kids go through.

Feelings and Features of Being a Third Culture Kid (TCK)

Third culture kids (TCK) are people raised in a culture other than their parents’ or the culture of the country named on their passport for a significant part of their early development years. TCK is a term coined by Ruth Hill Useem, an American sociologist. In today’s rapidly globalizing era, TCKs are on the rise as well.

Being a TCK has several implications. Firstly, I have no permanent sense of home attached to any geographical location. Change is my only constant. I spent my early childhood in Dubai, it was during 2001-2004, then shifted to Sharjah when my brother was born in 2004, Kerala when the financial crisis struck in 2008-2009, and back to Sharjah when we started to recover during the 2009-2010, before moving to Dubai when my dad’s company started to run smoothly a year later during 2010-2019. And now I live in Chennai, Tamil Nadu to pursue higher studies. I have no clue where I’ll go next and I’m not particularly worried about it.

TCKs tend to be a lot more adaptable and better able to cope with change (BBC). This is definitely true in my case as I consider myself to belong nowhere and everywhere at the same time. The people in my life matter more than the places. Another aspect of growing up in a different culture is that almost everyone is at the very least bilingual. I consider myself fluent in Malayalam, English and Hindi, and I have basic reading and writing skills in two more languages (Arabic and Korean).

This exposure is also a result of living in the era of rapid digitalization. From the launch of the first iPhone and Xbox to 4Dx theatres and VR (Virtual Reality) glasses, mine is a generation that has grown up with, and is highly dependent on, technology. From Word docs to Paytm, I can’t function in society without technology. The prospect of an even more technologically evolved future of ‘Smart Cities’ is a very promising one. I look forward to living in a world shaped by Mixed Reality and am able to keep up with and embrace the changes taking place around me a lot easier in comparison to my parental generation.

Being a member of this highly tech-savvy generation, I’m also heavily influenced by international media and entertainment. Keyword here being ‘international’ and not ‘Western’. I’ve used this deliberately due to the fact that my generation did not grow up only watching English and American movies and shows, but are familiar with other European language shows that have come up in recent years and have reached mass audiences through platforms like Netflix, with Asian movies and shows (most popular of which are Korean dramas), with Japanese anime, with YouTube content creators who produce videos from makeup tutorials to social experiments. All of this makes the digitally connected a lot more open and tolerant to cultures and ideologies other than their own.

Moving on, other key identity markers like religion and caste have never been of much importance in my life. I was born into a Hindu family, but I identify today as an atheist. Albeit being ardent believers, my parents have always respected my choice to not follow their model. My caste has played almost no role in my life as the country I lived in did not constantly remind me of such an arbitrary tag. Application forms had no blank for caste, and I faced no positive or negative discrimination based on it.

In terms of regional affiliation, although I call myself a Keralite, I prefer to be known as an Indian. My friends come from all over the country and regional pride is not something I’ve ever felt. Since Dubai does not have much in terms of its own culture, we celebrate all festivals and occasions from Eid and Christmas to UAE National Day and Indian Independence Day. I’ve gone Garba dancing all night, gotten gifts from my ‘Secret Santa’, hosted Onam sadyas at home and have, basically, embraced all aspects of all cultures that gives us a chance to connect with people. The sense of togetherness that exists in the crowd that gathers around Burj Khalifa every New Year’s Eve to watch the fireworks herald the coming of a new day is testament to the cosmopolitan nature of the city I will always love.

Conclusion

Overall, who I am today has a lot more to do with the society around me than my personal actions. I hope this essay has scratched the surface of how this societal influence has worked in my case. I have tried my best to be objective, however, there is bound to be inherent bias as I’m writing about my own life. This is up to the reader to ponder upon, and I hope I’ve provided the tools to deduce how and where I may have been prejudiced.