All through my life, I have known
myself as a black Peter. I had said things that were not supposed to be said. I
didn’t realize that over the years I had unconsciously accepted the label as my
identity, a black Peter. Here I will tell you a story, in the form of dialogues
in bits and pieces. I do hope that if the readers looked at the dialogues, they
could make some sense of what the intent of this short story is like. Not
calling it a short story, it doesn’t merit it, it’s a plane daft, but it’s definitely
the story of all the races of the world, a story that is so deeply written in
the minds of all human beings; the story of racism, ‘the original sin’ that is
so unfinished; most of the bloody wars we have fought, and are still fighting,
originate from the simple and innocuous dialogues that float around at ease.
Let’s see if I could pull this through and hold the unstructured text as a
broken mirror that is breaking ourselves from the inside.
- What is a pet name, ha ha ha!!! You bongs have ‘pate
naames’, like cats and dogs.
- No, we have two names, one for the inside world and
one for the outside world. That’s it.
- Heard that the bong brahmins also eat non-veg? what
kind of brahmins are you? Ha, ha, ha!
- And in your case, you marry your cousins, you are
endorsing incest relationships, it’s such a crime. Your real estate
advertisements are an eye-opener… so and so is a brahmin and wants to sell his
plot to a brahmin only, how racist of you, ha, ha, ha!
- All your ladies are bad, they smoke in public, what
a shame; not like our ladies, that’s why we hire heroines from your part of the
world because we don’t allow our ladies to work in films.
[ if you keep your ears open, you could hear these dialogues everywhere,
in offices, even in learning organizations whose vision/mission statements have diversity, respect for the individuals, in the public spaces, and in the drawing rooms]
…
- They are foreigners, they came from outside India.
They are so uncivil, arrogant, cannot stand them. They can’t even talk slowly;
they have to shout at the top of their voice. I belong to the original India
and I don’t mix with them, even though I am coming from the US. Such rogues
they are, ha, ha, ha!
- You know what, our epic the Ramayana must have
modeled the rakshasas accordingly. They are mean, selfish, never took part in
the freedom struggle, always stick to themselves. We are broadminded and good
looking, they use coconut oil for cooking, something we apply in our hair, ha,
ha, ha! Their language is so weird, it’s as if you have put a stone in a can of
coconut oil and shaking it to get a sense of their language, ha, ha, ha!
Our effort to throw stones at each
other is so sincere that we leave no stone unturned
- What? How dare you call me that? Do I look like
Bihari? I am a UPite, please remember this going forward.
- What? I am not a Bihari, I belong to Jharkhand!!!
- What? I may speak Telugu, but I belong to
Telangana, not Andhra, no, no, please don’t confuse.
- I am a Rajasthani, I cannot stand a Jath.
- I am a Jath, I cannot stand those sissy Bongs, ha,
ha, ha!
- I am a Punjabi, don’t confuse. West Bengal is a
poor state and ours is a rich state, it’s strange that we belong to the same
country, ha, ha, ha!
- If you see a snake and a mallu, kill the
mallu, not the snake, they’re so dangerous, ha, ha, ha!
- You are saying this for a mallu? But this is
also applicable for a telugu yaar! Ha, ha, ha!
….
But hang on, it’s not only in India that we have this mental block, it’s a global headache. We see that in every country, viz. Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Japan; in all the continents, viz. Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Australia. But we don’t realize that this meaningless divide we have so strongly built in our minds thanks to civilization is preventing us from looking at the real challenges. We are busy calling each other names, sometimes as chicken roasts, sometimes as ghosts, and whatnot. We are much too occupied laughing at each other, when will we consider laughing with each other. When? Will this pandemic help us look at ourselves as similar human beings or as dissimilar extra-terrestrials? Holding a mirror might help us in finding out how this delinquent factor is robbing us of all the pleasures of being together in our sufferings and pleasures alike.
