A Bowl of Elusive

I was born at the Air Force base in Chandigarh. My father left the force a couple of years after my birth and we moved around the country while he worked various jobs. Then after he died, I came to live with my grandparents in my hometown. I was ten years old. By this time, I had formed a somewhat confused identity due to all the places I’d lived in, and putting down roots seemed a little difficult. I would constantly feel like an outsider. I spoke my native tongue like I spoke my second and third languages, clearly but maybe “too clearly for a local guy”. And this affected the way I was perceived in school. People found me weird, I guess, however much I tried to seem normal. It was tough to make friends. I went to a lot of trouble initially to make people happy in the hope of securing their friendship in return. But I soon realized that they just thought I was being too needy. So, I stopped trying so hard. I stopped trying like 15 years ago. And that shaped my personality f...