‘Tu kya hai:' What does it mean to belong? Ghalib, grief, and the global identity crises

Indian Express

7 days ago

Har ek baat pe kahte ho tum ki tu kya hai
Tumhīn kaho ki ye andāz-e-guftugū kyā hai
You ask me, again and again—Tu kya hai?
But you don't wait for an answer. You scroll, you swipe, you double-tap.
These days, identity isn't something we discover. It's something we design. With filters. With follower counts. With hashtags that harmonise with hurt. With bios that boast belief systems in 150 characters or less. We pin pronouns and political positions like badges on a virtual lapel, hoping someone, anyone, will see us and say—there, that's a person who belongs.
In this world of hyper-influence and algorithmic affirmation, we're all chasing aura over authenticity. We're measured not by meaning but metrics. Not by truth but trends. Not by what we say, but how many repost it with a moody track playing in the background.
We don't ask 'Tu kya hai?' with curiosity anymore. We ask with suspicion. With side-eyes. With subtext.
Are you Left or Right?
Religious or secular?
Rich or aspirational?
Savarna or Scheduled?
Are you one of us—or one of them?
Na sho.ale meñ ye karishma na barq meñ ye adā
Koi batāo ki vo shoḳh-e-tund-khū kyā hai
There's no magic in the flame, no beauty in lightning, like that fierce, unrelenting presence of someone who dares to differ. But in today's climate, difference is danger. Nuance is a nuisance. Complexity is cancelled. And people—people are pixels, played with, packaged, politicised.
Look at America. The so-called standard-bearer of democracy now plays host to a dangerous drama starring a man with a microphone and a messiah complex. Donald Trump, the unfiltered, unfettered force of chaos, has turned the Constitution into kindling, and yet, millions follow. Millions cheer. Because he gives them a gift: identity.
The angry white man with a pickup truck. The Christian mum who misses church choir more than climate science. The jobless twenty-something who's never read Marx but hates the word 'woke'.
He tells them: You matter, because you're mine.
And they believe.
Ye rashk hai ki vo hotā hai ham-suḳhan tum se
Vagarna khaūf-e-bad-āmozi-e-adū kyā hai
It's envy. It's fear. It's power dressed in populism. And it's not just in the West.
Across the globe, strongmen strut across stages of collapsing democracies like peacocks on Prozac. They peddle pride and paranoia in equal measure. They brandish religion like a weapon and nationalism like a narcotic. They ask you not who you are, but whether you're with them. And if you're not, you're expendable.
The world isn't asking tu kya hai with wonder. It's asking with a warning.
Are you a believer? Or a betrayer?
Are you a capitalist? Or a communist?
Are you citizen enough? Or suspicious?
And we, like sheep searching for safety, keep tagging ourselves with temporary labels hoping they'll protect us from persecution.
#Feminist
#Patriot
#AntiFascist
#ProudBrahmin
#ProudDalit
#QueerMuslim
#NonBinarySikh
#SelfMadeSonOfTheSoil
We wear our pain like performance. Our caste like costume. Our convictions like clickbait.
But the algorithms are not interested in our truth. They want virality, not vulnerability.
And in this noise, we are burning.
Jalā hai jism jahāñ dil bhī jal gayā hogā
Kuredte ho jo ab raakh justujū kyā hai
The body burned where the heart was already ash. Why pick through the soot for sparks?
We do, though. Every time we open the news. Every time we vote. Every time we comment on conflict from our couches.
We're all trying to find fragments of ourselves in the ruins. Fragments that haven't been co-opted. Fragments that haven't been turned into marketing campaigns or manifestos.
Because what does it even mean anymore, to belong?
What does it mean to be from a country that hasn't made space for your kind of grief?
What does it mean to be of a faith that's been hijacked by fundamentalists?
What does it mean to be human in a time when being human is the most dangerous identity of all?
Ragoñ meñ dauṛte phirne ke ham nahīñ qā.il
Jab āñkh hī se na ṭapkā to phir lahū kyā hai
We don't believe in blood unless it bleeds from the eyes. Injustice must be seen to be believed. Pain must be performed to be validated.
And so we perform.
We document our despair. We livestream our losses. We curate our cries.
Because otherwise, we're invisible.
Unless you go viral, did it even happen?
Unless you trend, do you even matter?
And in the background, the old questions keep humming, haunting:
Tu kya hai?
Where's your passport from?
What's your surname?
Do you pray standing, kneeling, or not at all?
Even at the UN, where suits and salutes replace soul, these questions remain.
Even there, the old power play persists. Five countries hold vetoes that silence the other 188. Colonisers still cast the longest shadows. Refugees sit outside the room. Victims are reduced to statistics. And entire nations watch from the sidelines, hoping someone will ask not 'Who are you with?' but 'Who are you?'
Because maybe that's what Ghalib was really asking. Not for answers, but for agency.
Vo chīz jis ke liye ham ko ho bahisht azīz
Sivā.e bāda-e-gulfām-e-mushk-bū kyā hai
That heaven we crave—is it not the heady, intoxicating fragrance of freedom? Of fairness? Of finally being allowed to be?
Ghalib wasn't just writing couplets. He was coding consciousness. He was telling us that language is legacy. That identity is not inherited—it's insisted upon. That belonging is not bestowed—it's built.
And maybe, in this maddening moment of memefied ideologies and political cosplay, we need that old sher more than ever.
Har ek baat pe kahte ho tum ki tu kya hai
Tumhīn kaho ki ye andāz-e-guftugū kyā hai
You ask who I am. But maybe, just maybe, I get to ask the same.
Who are you, to decide my destiny?
Who are you, to demand my allegiance?
Who are you, who silence and scroll in the same breath?
Because in this world tearing itself apart over tribe and tongue, over theology and Twitter handles, maybe it's time the uninvited spoke. The unheard. The underrepresented. The unknown.
Maybe it's time the global South stopped waiting for permission. Maybe it's time the marginalised redefined the mainstream. Maybe it's time the forgotten remembered who they were.
And maybe, just maybe, it's time we build a table where everyone eats.
Not just the ones with old money and older empires.
Not just the ones whose power is printed in passports.
But us—the people.
The ones who've survived dictatorships and droughts, who've lived through lynchings and long queues at embassies. The ones who've danced at weddings with no dowries, who've sung lullabies in languages that don't get translation toggles. The ones whose pain isn't profitable, whose power isn't platformed.
Maybe we are the new superpower.
Maybe Ghalib wasn't mourning. He was warning.
That unless we know who we are—really know—we'll always be someone else's pawn.
Huā hai shah kā musāhib phire hai itrātā
Vagarna shahr meñ 'Ghalib' kī ābrū kyā hai
He's bragging now that he's close to the king. Otherwise, who in this city even respects Ghalib?
And isn't that the question we need to ask the world?
Who gets respect—and why?
And more importantly—what will we do when we realise it's ours to reclaim?