2. Identity Crisis

Against the 'heavy' title, we would like to clarify at the outset that we will not get into the grave social topic of our time. This is related to just simple problem of proving that we exist - legally. It might be a laughing point for you, but it's true. We, the common people were made to struggle hard for identity.

What makes us to identify anything? Unique feature, right. Even an illiterate shepherd knows that from his experience of collecting the sheep at the end of the day. But in our 'modern' state, it was not so trivial, may be because many different shepherds were trying to identify the same sheep with their own method! The name was not good enough for identification because naming a child was in the hands of parents. Obviously, there used to be a million Sachin, a million Rahul, a million Priyanka and so on based on the popular public figure from time to time. So, there was unique identification right from the preschool with 'roll number' which changed every year. All the way through to graduation. Then there used to be a unique identifier called 'employee number' when one started working. This would also change every time the employer was changed. So, a changing identity was stuck to everyone right from preschool through retirement for the most important aspect of the life.

But, to add to this, various other aspects also demanded obtaining identity for them to recognize one. So, we ended up having a phone number, various bank account numbers, insurance account number and so on for whatever services we asked for. But we obliged considering the value of services we got in return. It was stupid to keep track of a myriad of 'consumer numbers' for phone, cooking gas, electricity, bank, insurance, TV subscription, internet subscription, hospital all for a single human!

The ultimate pain in the neck was 'forced identity' by the government bodies. There used to be a social security number, passport number, driving license number, income tax number, voter ID number etc. And what for - just to identify a human. There was absolutely no service offered by any of these government entities. A social security number didn't provide any security from theft or injury. The passport didn't guarantee any passage out or in the country. The driving license didn't enable any comfort while driving. The income tax number didn't assure of any income. But still one had to obtain all these over a period of time. On top of it, these disparate government entities decided to 'link' these numbers together. Although all these identities were given by them, they didn't take the onus of linking them. It was made a responsibility of the identified subject to get linking done.

The mayhem created by this drive had resulted in the real identity crisis for many millions of humans of our time. This crisis was not 'who am I' but 'why am I' ! Don't laugh, this is real situation from history of humans and you may not find it in your conventional history books. Now you may realize the importance of the humans in between our generation and your generation who fought for 'single identity' and the resulting ease with which your generation 'exists'!