Who am I? I thought I knew –  ‘an elderly woman  with short greying hair and wearing spectacles’  who looks back at me in the mirror!. But I am not so sure anymore! I am one of many me-s in my various ‘photo-ID’s – although my driving license (which I have lost) was without a photo, the me in the passport, PAN card, voter card, aadhaar card, bank pass book are all different me-s, depending on when it was made.

When I moved to Lucknow in 1987,  the local branch of SBI within our campus helped me to transfer my account from Mumbai. It was slow and through slow mail, but fairly painless.  I renewed my BRADMA (a system of  embossing letters on plastic, which younger people will not recognize)  made driving license with the local RTO.  The passport, possessed by a privileged few,  always had a photograph and I…