My foreign name
Rests easy under
My Dravidian skin
It’s sure of itself
Needs no other handle
To command a place
In this diverse earth
Hurtling through space

Abjure this question:
Why this anachronism?
The Raj isn’t your master,
And for a Christian name
Peter sounds better than
An Irish-Iberian cocktail of
Distinctive Irish whiskey, and
Fortified Portuguese wine

In this DNA driven world
You can decode my life
By genomics,
And lay me bare
At the edge
Of a third culture
But telling nothing
Of who I am

I am much more
Than the sum of my parts.
Unstrained by genes or name
Unfettered by fate or design
I make myself in spirit
In a process I cannot define.
Can genomics open its eyes
Wider than yours or mine?

Dolan Fernandes
2008