On Thu, 10 Oct 2024 at 10:19, Veena Venugopal via Silklist < [email protected]> wrote: > While I understand the reluctance to be reduced to one identity, I think what do you do is a pretty good way of figuring out what I'd likely have in common with the person I am speaking with.
I agree with you. I'm not as turned off by the question as some people here but I understand the argument that we are more than just what we do for a living. Hey, I'm on maybe my fourth career now. :) But it's a starting point. I suppose one could ask something like "What do you do for fun?" The problem with unexpected off-beat conversation openers is that some people might raise a mental eyebrow and be more defensive around you. No, not all people. Yes, people are always trying to size each other up and sometimes "what do you do?" is used for specifically that purpose, but not always. It doesn't mean you're restricted to talking about just work and not taking the conversation anywhere else. The question I hate, which the author of the link Udhay posted writes > about, is where I am from. I am from Kerala, but i neither speak the > language well nor do I know much about the history or contemporary issues > of the State, and I am very much a tourist when I visit. I have lived in > Delhi-NCR for the longest stretch and yet i can't say i am from there as > well. My response to hat question is usually "all over" and an > awkward laugh. > I identify with this as well, being a #FraudMallu who was just born in Kerala and spent my toddler days there. Was raised in Delhi, went abroad to study, and moved to Bangalore as an adult where I've spent most of my adult years. I speak Malayalam fairly well but think in English, so is English my "mother tongue"? My usual response to "Where are you from?" is "I'm culturally all over the place." I do like the look on Malayali faces when they ask the usual "Naadu evideya?" and I reply with "Delhi". Madhu
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