By Hindustan Times
I must rant. I USED TO BE stuck in my car within the gully just outside my building as a result of a truck parked at the road and blocking the passageway. The driving force refused to transport as he was filling water for a building. Suddenly, out of nowhere came an elderly woman who, with none pretext, came walking to the auto and said, “Yeh log aise hi hai.” Then she checked out me and said, “Kya kar rahi ho? Piche jao.” I replied, “Aage mera ghar hai.” The truck driver told me to take any other path to my building. Once I said I didn’t know some other way, the girl took the chance to say, “Bol rahi hai iski ghar hai, phir bhi isko koi aur rasta nahin malum.” After I asked her why she was insulting me, her eyes looked down for a moment after which she said in English, “I am not insulting you, that is my road to stroll on, not yours.” She walked on. I reversed the auto and tried to seek out in a different way to get to my building.
This racism is something I’ve needed to handle all my life, been born and taken up here, but damn I still can’t get used to it. I'M GOING to a small town and men start chatting with me in broken English saying such things as “Hey baby” and “Saxy lady.” I AM GETTING asked questions by journalists reminiscent of “Why aren’t you in Hollywood?” and “Do you favor India?” as if I had just arrived on this country yesterday. I AM GETTING people, usually of an older generation, telling me, “Yeh log aise hi hai.” Sure, being white has had the other effect too, where people have treated me with much more kindness as if I’m their guest, I’ve probably been shortlisted in auditions for being ‘fair’, but this too is a type of racism, a separation. We adore to split people into neat little categories through their religion, the color in their skin, the way in which they speak and get dressed etc… and that i can’t help but feel that this racism and this fear of different is what limits us as people (I MIGHT also love to say as a nation but that requires one really long essay: read Arundati Roy’s Capitalism: A Ghost Story on this month’s Outlook, she gets it spot on).
For this short rant, I just have one last thought. Whether you own a Mercedes or a cycle, you continue to need to trudge during the same potholes. What’s the purpose in moving up when the nation is a gutter? There’s something in that, a gaping common cause, but maybe we’re too busy bickering amongst ourselves to cope with gaping causes.
Finally, way to all my fans, who wrote to me after reading my column last week...
Hi Tanushree, I believe you.
Thanks Aadhar, thanks Akriti.
Shatabdi I’m glad there are folks disturbed by this!
Gautam I’ll attempt to sustain the nice work :)
