Am I an imposter for "abandoning" my homeland? - A topic I keep visiting. Particularly, when I hear the anticipation in my "sano mumma's" voice pressing against my ear from thousands of miles away as she asks me if I'd "settle" here or return, expecting the latter. Or when I think of the life I left behind, back home, to live the one I have here, in my new.. home? I often find myself attempting to reconcile with my culture back in Nepal to the realities of my life in the Western world. Whether it's through buying 100 pack wax candles from K-mart to mimic the incandescent glow of Diyas during Diwali or to dedicate the very last corner of my closet to the vibrant glitz and glitter of mumma's sarees. But whose approval am I seeking ?

The intrinsic desire to connect to our homeland plays a pivotal role in the collective diasporic ontology. This is well represented in the telenovela, "Jane the Virgin" in which Jane Villaneava endeavours to fill the cultural gap between her son and herself to their Hispanic heritage. Just like Jane, I try to make Nepal a part of me or really, me a part of Nepal. But if where I am from is the root to my Otherness, am I the imposter for wanting to conceal it?

Eunice Andrada, in her poem (Because I am a daughter of a diaspora) captures the Diaspora Blues accentuating the enigmatic feeling of being unwanted in a new country, / of being unneeded in your own homeland. Everyone is confronted with an epiphany at least once in their life in the middle of a class that permanently alters their perception towards the world. Sitting through a Geography lesson, watching the entire class browse through websites marqueed "Least Developed Countries in the World" with my home being on every single one of them was quite life altering. Having to reidentify your own home to not see it through a Western lens that tends to delegitimize the beautiful aspects of your own ethnic phenomenology is something no class prepares you for.

Garth Davis's movie, Lion (2016) starring Dev Patel, displays an identity crisis when his character Saroo, is confronted with the complexities of finding a liminal space that accommodates his Indian roots as well as the chunk of his life that he spent in Australia. This then motivates him to reconcile with his culture to find a, Third Space. The "Third Space", introduced by Homi K. BhaBha in his book "The Location of Culture", is an arena where cultures clash and intersect and identities are negotiated. I am yet to feel safe in the Third Space.

Maybe I am the imposter. Guilty of failing to pronounce the "rrr" sound in my own language. Guilty of being too whitewashed. But aren't we all? All the girls that moved away from home at the tender age of 16?

Maybe the candle aisle at Kmart and the corner of the closet between the glitz and glitter of mummas sarees is where my liminal space lies.

Maybe, I am the imposter.

Raabiya Sharma is a student in grade 11 at Kambala Girls School in Sydney, Australia