PSEUDO EVERYTHING
The year began with an unexpected opportunity in costume design for a film. When I first walked through the gates of the studio, I had no idea what the movie was about, who was directing it, or even who the producer was. All I knew was that I wanted to experience what costume design was all about.
The first thing I noticed were the vanity vans lined up outside, each with the logo of “Sun Pictures.” The name felt strangely familiar. Curious, I quickly looked it up and realized it was the same production house behind Sun TV. Instantly, my mind drifted to evenings spent watching Tamil serials with my grandmother, the weekends our family gathered around the television for Tamil movies, and the afternoons my brother and I spent dancing to songs on Sun Music or waiting for cartoons on Chutti TV.
It felt almost like a sign: my very first job after college happened to be a Tamil production. Somehow, that coincidence eased the nervousness I had carried with me on my first day. Walking through the studio and hearing people speak in Tamil, I felt a certain familiarity in the sound of the language, even though I rarely spoke it myself.
At the costume base, I was briefed on the rules and expectations. One statement stood out: I was advised not to wear revealing clothes because many men would be around, particularly Tamil men, she clarified. I paused; processing; before nodding. It felt as if my Tamil identity was being noticed and labeled before I even spoke, a feeling that would resurface in unexpected ways over the next few days.
Two days later, the main designers asked if I spoke Tamil and said they wanted me to act as a “spy” to understand what a few Tamil crew members were saying. Suddenly, my language became a tool I was expected to use. The word “spy” made me pause. For a split second, it felt like I was being asked to betray my own people, though I wasn’t even sure why. It was a strange, disorienting feeling, part responsibility and part alienation.
At home, I barely speak Tamil. Part of it is shyness; whenever I try, someone inevitably points out that my Tamil sounds childish, and they’re not entirely wrong. I think in English, so speaking Tamil often feels like translating my thoughts mid-sentence. Because of this, my relationship with Tamil has always felt complicated. When I’m around Tamil speakers, part of me feels an instinctive familiarity, yet another part grows tense. I worry that if the conversation turns toward me, they’ll quickly realize how little I actually know. I often default to English, partly to keep everyone included, partly to hide my uncertainty.
Language has always been a marker of belonging, or of its absence. Learning Hindi after we moved from Chennai when I was four was its own struggle. Even after years in the city, my Hindi was still weak. Once, my teacher passed around anonymous papers for students to review, and when she read mine, “Aap bahut dandthi ho”, she immediately knew it was mine. Those early moments made me very aware of how being different in language could make you stand out, even when you were just a child trying to fit in.
College deepened that sense of being an outsider. It was the first place where, along with countless other discoveries about myself, I truly recognized both my privileges and the distance I felt from any real cultural belonging. I remember one evening returning home so upset that I left my bags in the hall and immediately told my parents everything, pacing and talking for an hour without even taking off my shoes. I tried to explain why language apparently mattered so much, and how I had been questioned repeatedly about why I didn’t speak Marathi while living in Mumbai. My answer was simple: I never really had the opportunity to learn it. My schooling had been in CBSE, which didn’t include Marathi, and growing up, I had barely heard the language at home.
I watched students from Kerala or Maharashtra bond instantly through their languages, while I felt invisible. Even when I found Tamil friends, I was anxious; they spoke naturally, while I stumbled. Eventually, the labels stuck: Pseudo Tamil. Pseudo Mumbaikar. Pseudo everything. Looking back, these experiences weren’t just about language, they were about the quiet, persistent ways identity and belonging could be assumed, questioned, or denied.
When we first left Chennai, I cried for days. I hated Mumbai at first. Leaving Chennai felt like leaving a part of my soul behind. For years, I told everyone that Chennai was my true home, and nothing could ever replace it.
Now I’m that almost-nostalgic Mumbai girl who romanticizes the city by calling it Bombay and saying things like, “Once you’re here, you can’t help but fall in love with it.” I’m a big Bollywood fan, and I only watch Tamil movies if they happen to be on Netflix or Prime Video. Growing up, I don’t even know when it shifted from saying, “I’m from Chennai and have been in Mumbai for a few years,” to, “I was born in Chennai and brought up in Mumbai,” to finally just saying, “I’m from Mumbai.” Which usually doesn’t work, because my face is so obviously South Indian that I have to add, “I was born in Chennai,” but secretly hope they remember the Mumbai part.
Because what the hell do I really know about Chennai anymore?
While explaining my roots to a few people at work, someone said, “So it’s been twenty years in Mumbai?” The number felt enormous, like a dolly zoom swallowing my experience and my connection to the Chennai I once knew. For two decades, I had carried Chennai with me, not just in memory, but almost like an identity I assumed I still understood. And yet, in that moment, I realized how little I actually knew. I hadn’t visited in years, easily eight or ten, and most trips had only been airport transits. The streets, the smells, the ways of the city I remembered, they were gone, or at least inaccessible. I was suddenly aware of how much I had been living in a kind of delusion, imagining a connection to a place I had, in truth, left behind. Planning a trip with a friend, I even found myself researching it like any other foreign city, typing “Things to do in Chennai,” as if the home I once knew had become entirely foreign.
I’ve always envied people who can simply say, “I just went to my village for a while,” or, “I’m going home.” How comforting it must be to have a place where you truly belong.
So I thought, maybe I finally fit in in Mumbai. Maybe this was home. But a coworker’s comment reminded me of my gaps in Hindi, just when I had convinced myself that I had picked it up well enough. She was right, I didn’t know many of the pure Hindi words she used, and I still stumble over the gendered forms of others. At that moment, I felt stripped back to just English, a language that isn’t even truly of this land.
It reminded me of The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet. Franz, a boy careless about French, suddenly regrets not valuing his language when it’s about to vanish. I had understood that moral years ago, but only now did it hit me personally. Language is more than words; it is connection, identity, and a claim to belonging.
That realization made me see Mumbai differently. Even after twenty years, I navigate it partly as an outsider. A junior once asked about local transport, and when I omitted the local trains, they looked shocked: “How privileged are you?”. Living in a bubble, I discovered that I don’t fully know the streets, the costs, or the workings of the city I call home. In that moment, my imagined sense of belonging collided with reality.
So now I stand at this threshold. I’m Tamil enough that people make assumptions about me, yet not Tamil enough to feel fully confident among Tamil speakers. I live in Mumbai, but I’m not Marathi-speaking. I look South Indian, yet I identify with Mumbai. I have lived in the idea of Mumbai, just as I now live in the memory of Chennai. I exist in an in-between space, neither here nor there, suspended between worlds, never fully landing.
I’ve spent my life observing, absorbing, and navigating worlds that never felt entirely my own, Mumbai, Chennai, Tamil, Hindi, English. I’ve become used to being in-between, to floating at the edges rather than fully inhabiting a space. And yet, there are moments when I wonder if this in-between existence can ever translate into a sense of settling, whether in a city, a language, or even with a person.
Recently, a friend said, “Love is often the last thing our brain comprehends. Our senses recognize familiarity first.” I relate to this; perhaps part of me seeks someone or someplace familiar, a quiet tether to a world I’ve never fully inhabited.
The idea of “settling,” not just with a person, but into one single version of myself, is a little frightening. What does it actually mean to belong somewhere when you don’t fully know the language, the streets, the inside jokes, or the daily life? If I can’t fully participate in those things, what exactly am I belonging to? And yet, if knowing every tiny detail isn’t everything, why does it matter so much when we look for acceptance from others?
Even in costume design, I can learn technical skills, study fabrics, understand lighting, and do research, but great costume design, like any art, depends on culture. It’s about knowing the subtle ways people inhabit a world, the histories, habits, and nuances that make it feel real. I keep asking myself: how can I ever become a Ruth E. Carter if I don’t know my own culture the way she knew hers, the very knowledge that earned her an Oscar for Black Panther? How can I create worlds that feel real if I don’t fully inhabit one myself?
During the internship, I started listening to more Tamil songs every day. And now, two weeks since I left, I find myself listening to them on repeat, rediscovering ones I loved as a kid. I was almost about to stay in the costume design role. I even wrote a pros and cons list. One of the pros simply said: Tamil. It sounds funny, but for me, it made a difference. Just being able to speak a few lines in Tamil every day, hearing it around me outside the home, felt comforting in a way I didn’t expect. That small connection reminded me that belonging doesn’t always have to be absolute; it can be small, partial, and still meaningful. Though even now, I don’t know where I belong, or if I should even long for it, but for the moment, the music is enough.