It’s official: the firangs have declared the Games Village unfit for human beings (unfit for human beings!). Their Indian peers, though, shake their heads and shrug with a smile: it’s okay, this is India. Apparently that’s all one can expect here.
It’s like the time I got harassed in public by a large group of Indian boys, in Toronto no less. When I complained to the Indian uncles and aunties nearby, they too shrugged and smiled. Boys will be boys, they’d told me, I was probably just not used to it. I’d been raised overseas after all.
What?
Why should I have to get used to it? Why should I have to get used to perverts? Why should I have to get used to streets that look as if they’ve been bombed? Why should I have to get used to the presence of diseases like malaria and dengue in India’s capital? From what angle is any of this even remotely acceptable? Who put a cap on our quality of life, who taught us to say ‘it’s okay’ when it’s not? I don’t want to have to get used to anything. Lo ho gayee chhutti, I may as well just stay at home then and wait for the sky to fall on my head.
But I don’t want to settle. I want to stay hungry. I am not okay with the way basic facilities are managed in India. I am not okay with how Indian people behave outside or inside of India. I will never be okay with anyone who not only gets used to mediocrity but who actually defends it. I will never be okay with Indians who, instead of sharing the outrage, treat their Indian critics as whistleblowers and just plain ignore their foreign critics. This is India, I’m told, this is the real world. And I’m what, supposed to feel proud of that? Is this what our patriotism is tied to? Lo ho gayee chhutti.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
Chicken Little
I don't want to punch the rooster next door in the face anymore. I'm told that the little guy has problems - whenever he wakes up, he scuttles out of his coop (or wherever he lives, I've yet to meet him nose to beak) and crows his heart out with his eyes tightly shut. He never knows what time it is or even if the sun is out or not, he just keeps crowing out of some sense of pride, obligation, or maybe even confusion. Poor little man.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
NDTV Journal: week 2
Mr. Ajmal Jami liked Rajiv Gandhi the very first time he met him. He thought the young Indian Prime Minister came off as an all round good guy. At one point, Rajiv Gandhi even grabbed the veteran cameraperson’s arm when Mr. Jami, trying to film the PM while walking backwards with his video camera, tripped and almost fell.
Mr. Jami also remembers other things. He remembers rushing to the site where Rajiv Gandhi was blown to bits by a suicide bomber some years later. He remembers the piece of red carpet that had been cut out to take away the remains of the man who in another time maybe could’ve been his buddy. He also remembers almost stepping onto a disembodied arm whose fingernails were painted bright red. He remembers how it had just lain there.
Took me back to ‘Stiff’, a collection of dark but humorous essays I’d once read about the contributions of cadavers to science. I remember the author, Mary Roach, describing a visit to a lab where plastic surgery students would practice their skills. Each student would be given the head of a cadaver to practice a number of cosmetic and reconstructive procedures on. Each was also given one pair of cadaver hands that were severed a little above the wrist. The author described how one particular student’s ‘hands’ had beautiful shapely fingers whose nails were painted bright red. This bit of personality startled the student who touched the hands and wondered about the body - the person - they once used to be attached to.
Mr. Jami also remembers other things. He remembers rushing to the site where Rajiv Gandhi was blown to bits by a suicide bomber some years later. He remembers the piece of red carpet that had been cut out to take away the remains of the man who in another time maybe could’ve been his buddy. He also remembers almost stepping onto a disembodied arm whose fingernails were painted bright red. He remembers how it had just lain there.
Took me back to ‘Stiff’, a collection of dark but humorous essays I’d once read about the contributions of cadavers to science. I remember the author, Mary Roach, describing a visit to a lab where plastic surgery students would practice their skills. Each student would be given the head of a cadaver to practice a number of cosmetic and reconstructive procedures on. Each was also given one pair of cadaver hands that were severed a little above the wrist. The author described how one particular student’s ‘hands’ had beautiful shapely fingers whose nails were painted bright red. This bit of personality startled the student who touched the hands and wondered about the body - the person - they once used to be attached to.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Elsewhere
I've been having strange out-of-body experiences since I left Oman for Delhi:
Working on my laptop transports me back to the Qurum City Center where I am stroking the keyboard for the very first time, already knowing that yes, this is the one. I can hear the young Balochi Omani salesman telling me in his heavily accented Hindi that he had spent some years at a boarding school in Dehradun and that it reminded him of his favourite place in Oman, Salalah. I can feel the shoppers around me - brown, black, and white - strolling about the wide aisles of Carrefour that are sharply lit with bright white light. The floors are swept to a sparkle, everyone is well-dressed. It's still the first week of Ramadhan, and the stores are going to be open extra late all month.
I think of my tailor everytime I pull out a set of clothes. The print reminds me of the shopping trip I went on with my mother, the store we bought it from, the Indian shopkeepers who've seen me grow from knobbly knees and pigtails to make-up and heels. Our tailor is Pakistani. His name is Tariq, and he's been making my clothes in Oman with his brother, Rizwan, since I was 7 or 8. I still remember the first grown-up style shalwar qameez he made for me. I had finished my first reading of the Quran in Arabic, and we were going to have a party. For the first time, I got to pick an inky red and dark blue shiny synthetic material for myself, different from the usual flowery cotton stuff my mom would make me wear. For the first time, I got to pick a design for my dress from one of the tailor's grown-up fashion books all by myself. I was under 10, and that outfit made me feel like Sridevi. I've worn many wonderful dresses since, but none that ever gave me that kick.
Everytime I see a young person driving their own car while I'm waiting to find an autorickshaw driver who won't give me attitude, I think about how well I knew the smooth, clean roads of Muscat. I remember gesticulating to Cliff Richard's 'Devil Woman' as it played in my dad's Corolla as I took it out for a spin to the Darsait LuLu, to the Qurum McDonald's, to my beloved alma mater Indian School Muscat, or drove past a 400-year-old fort by the sea. I wonder if there is any other city in the world where I know the roads by landmarks and don't need streetnames.
As I put my contact lenses away at the end of the day, I see the Sudanese optician's handwriting on the lenses container. He'd tested my eyes for the first time when I was 10 years old, and he's been testing my eyes ever since. I'm never sure what he's saying as he keeps switching midsentence between Arabic and English, but he always sends greetings to my father at the end of the transaction.
I remember my Sudanese dentist in his tiny shop in Ruwi whenever I try to floss in the dull light of the shared bathroom where I rent a room. I'd only been going to him for a year, but I've never seen him without his mask, so I don't even know what he really looks like. He's a really nice dentist though, and he doesn't yell at me when a tear or whimper or two escape me when I'm in the chair. Apparently he was educated in Egypt.
As I begin to worry about where to find a good salon in Delhi, I think of the convenience of having the Excellent Beauty Corner a one-minute walk from our apartment in Muscat. It's hard finding an intuitive beautician who can understand your temperament and is skilled at the same time. I remember feeling a sense of separation anxiety the last time I visited the ladies at the salon before I left for Delhi. How am I going to find another salon where the women call me 'dear' and speak to me kindly?
The thought of wanting to rent a movie and not knowing where to go takes me back to Samara Video, which one can reach from our apartment in the MBD area in 5 minutes by car. The guy who works at the counter is an Arab from Bahrain. I don't know his name, but he's distinctively effeminate. His eyebrows are tweezed, and he has a long beautiful ponytail that reaches the middle of his back like a piece of thick rope. He often wears fitted tees, and his speech and laughter are soft. All the women like him. I don't feel as restrained around him as I do with other men. I once entered the store with a bag of popcorn in my hand and offered him some as I exchanged a joke or two with him. He once mentioned to me that he would like to live in Oman for good because it is a peaceful and clean place. One of the last places like that left in the world, I expect.
Working on my laptop transports me back to the Qurum City Center where I am stroking the keyboard for the very first time, already knowing that yes, this is the one. I can hear the young Balochi Omani salesman telling me in his heavily accented Hindi that he had spent some years at a boarding school in Dehradun and that it reminded him of his favourite place in Oman, Salalah. I can feel the shoppers around me - brown, black, and white - strolling about the wide aisles of Carrefour that are sharply lit with bright white light. The floors are swept to a sparkle, everyone is well-dressed. It's still the first week of Ramadhan, and the stores are going to be open extra late all month.
I think of my tailor everytime I pull out a set of clothes. The print reminds me of the shopping trip I went on with my mother, the store we bought it from, the Indian shopkeepers who've seen me grow from knobbly knees and pigtails to make-up and heels. Our tailor is Pakistani. His name is Tariq, and he's been making my clothes in Oman with his brother, Rizwan, since I was 7 or 8. I still remember the first grown-up style shalwar qameez he made for me. I had finished my first reading of the Quran in Arabic, and we were going to have a party. For the first time, I got to pick an inky red and dark blue shiny synthetic material for myself, different from the usual flowery cotton stuff my mom would make me wear. For the first time, I got to pick a design for my dress from one of the tailor's grown-up fashion books all by myself. I was under 10, and that outfit made me feel like Sridevi. I've worn many wonderful dresses since, but none that ever gave me that kick.
Everytime I see a young person driving their own car while I'm waiting to find an autorickshaw driver who won't give me attitude, I think about how well I knew the smooth, clean roads of Muscat. I remember gesticulating to Cliff Richard's 'Devil Woman' as it played in my dad's Corolla as I took it out for a spin to the Darsait LuLu, to the Qurum McDonald's, to my beloved alma mater Indian School Muscat, or drove past a 400-year-old fort by the sea. I wonder if there is any other city in the world where I know the roads by landmarks and don't need streetnames.
As I put my contact lenses away at the end of the day, I see the Sudanese optician's handwriting on the lenses container. He'd tested my eyes for the first time when I was 10 years old, and he's been testing my eyes ever since. I'm never sure what he's saying as he keeps switching midsentence between Arabic and English, but he always sends greetings to my father at the end of the transaction.
I remember my Sudanese dentist in his tiny shop in Ruwi whenever I try to floss in the dull light of the shared bathroom where I rent a room. I'd only been going to him for a year, but I've never seen him without his mask, so I don't even know what he really looks like. He's a really nice dentist though, and he doesn't yell at me when a tear or whimper or two escape me when I'm in the chair. Apparently he was educated in Egypt.
As I begin to worry about where to find a good salon in Delhi, I think of the convenience of having the Excellent Beauty Corner a one-minute walk from our apartment in Muscat. It's hard finding an intuitive beautician who can understand your temperament and is skilled at the same time. I remember feeling a sense of separation anxiety the last time I visited the ladies at the salon before I left for Delhi. How am I going to find another salon where the women call me 'dear' and speak to me kindly?
The thought of wanting to rent a movie and not knowing where to go takes me back to Samara Video, which one can reach from our apartment in the MBD area in 5 minutes by car. The guy who works at the counter is an Arab from Bahrain. I don't know his name, but he's distinctively effeminate. His eyebrows are tweezed, and he has a long beautiful ponytail that reaches the middle of his back like a piece of thick rope. He often wears fitted tees, and his speech and laughter are soft. All the women like him. I don't feel as restrained around him as I do with other men. I once entered the store with a bag of popcorn in my hand and offered him some as I exchanged a joke or two with him. He once mentioned to me that he would like to live in Oman for good because it is a peaceful and clean place. One of the last places like that left in the world, I expect.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
NDTV Journal: week 1
This is the first in a series of posts that will chronicle my time as an apprentice at NDTV in New Delhi:
I knew I was back in India when I glanced out the window of the sweaty cab and was met by the bored stare of a cow. I felt greasy, slimy, and I was sticking to the cab’s upholstery. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. For the first time since I had applied for NDTV’s Broadcast Training Program did I encounter doubt and even some dread. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe everybody had been right. I am unrealistic, and now I and the money from my savings that I had used to pay for the program were stuck. What business did an IT professional have attending journalism training anyway? So what if I used to play around as a kid with our old tape deck, making my own radio news shows? So what if I’d nurtured my interest in filmmaking alongside my day job? So what if I was already a published author three times over? This sort of a thing, this sort of a drift, was just not done. What made me think that I could pull it off? They were right. I had set myself up for disaster. I was going to ruin my future. What had I been thinking? And now it was too late. The evening traffic mirrored my predicament – it didn’t seem like we were moving ahead, and we certainly could not go backwards. These things don’t work that way.
I knew I was back in India when I glanced out the window of the sweaty cab and was met by the bored stare of a cow. I felt greasy, slimy, and I was sticking to the cab’s upholstery. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. For the first time since I had applied for NDTV’s Broadcast Training Program did I encounter doubt and even some dread. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe everybody had been right. I am unrealistic, and now I and the money from my savings that I had used to pay for the program were stuck. What business did an IT professional have attending journalism training anyway? So what if I used to play around as a kid with our old tape deck, making my own radio news shows? So what if I’d nurtured my interest in filmmaking alongside my day job? So what if I was already a published author three times over? This sort of a thing, this sort of a drift, was just not done. What made me think that I could pull it off? They were right. I had set myself up for disaster. I was going to ruin my future. What had I been thinking? And now it was too late. The evening traffic mirrored my predicament – it didn’t seem like we were moving ahead, and we certainly could not go backwards. These things don’t work that way.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Where are they now?
I've met many people in this life of mine that I've spent trotting around the globe, recently on my own. I wonder about the ones whom I shared moments with for a while or even just a few minutes and then went our separate ways, never to meet again. Some of them made me happy when I needed to be made happy, and they never even knew it. I wonder where they are now and if they remember me as I remember them:
Florence worked with security in the building across from the Empire State Building that housed the office of Guideposts magazine. She was a middle-aged black woman from Trinidad & Tobago whom I chatted with when I visited the staff at Guideposts on my magical 2007 New York trip. I never saw her again.
The black UPS mailman rode around the Oklahoma State University campus every day in his black truck and brown uniform. I met him as a desk clerk in my residence call where he would drop by everyday on his rounds delivering mail. It was one of my duties as a desk clerk to receive and distribute mail in the mailboxes of the buildings' residents. I can't remember the mailman's name - was it Robert? He was a gentleman and would great me with a compliment and a smile every time. Even after I stopped working at the residence hall, we'd wave and greet each other everytime his truck passed me by anywhere, on-campus or off. He made me feel like a pretty lady. I left OSU in 2005. I never saw him again.
A dusky and statuesque waitress was serving me that late night at the no-name Los Angeles diner. She wore a stereotypical turquoise waitress outfit that went down to her knees, complete with a white apron and white wrap cloth tiara on her crown. She looked Hispanic. Her hair was long, black, and thick, and her skin was the colour of hot chocolate. Her lipstick was a soft dark brown. She asked me where I was from. I said India. Her eyes lit up and she smiled. She was from Bangladesh, she said. She told me her name and I told her mine. We were both Muslims. I looked around the dimly lit diner with its plastic covered seats and plastic-covered menus. What was this beautiful woman doing here, so far away from home, in this town full of freaks and perverts? I never saw her again.
The old woman who looked like she was made of wet white paper was looking at me expectantly, her eyes shining. I told her I liked her gold pendant and that she looked pretty. She clasped her hands and her voice shook. "Oh, honey..." she said as she smiled, her eyes never away from my face. The other university kids who were part of my volunteer group in Stillwater stood a few feet away from us, nervous and uncomfortable in the old folk's home. They were all young, all under 20, and the smell of death, decay, and napthalene made them uneasy. Maybe it's because they were American, or maybe I was used to being around old people, but I felt more comfortable at the home than with them. We didn't stay at the home for more than 10 minutes. I met that old woman in 2000. I never saw her again.
My friend and I were buying movie tickets for the new Mr. Bean movie at the AMC near Times Square. I noticed that the counter had the new Master Card smart card reader installed. I got excited and began to hum the tune of the commercial, a funny little ad that had had the card reader beeping to the tune of Strauss's 'Blue Danube'. The young black fellow working at the counter sang with me. We all laughed. I never saw him again.
When I was in kindergarten in Muscat in the early 80s, our school had hired elderly Omani women to help the teachers take care of the little children. I spent many hours sitting in the lap of the old Omani woman in my class. She was short, strongly built, dark, and had a wide nose. Sh wore colourful cotton Omani clothes. I remember her in a dark green and black outfit. A long scarf covered her hair, and the only parts of her body that were visible were her chubby hands and feet and her face. She didn't speak much. She didn't know any English or much Hindi or Urdu, and the Indian children, most of them South Indian, didn't know any Arabic but only smatterings of English and mostly Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Telegu, Tamil, Kannada, etc. I never saw her again.
The tall strawberry-blonde young Irish fellow at the Navy Pier in Chicago was selling t-shirts and bags that changed colour in sunlight. I didn't want to buy anything, but he stopped my mother and I and laughed and joked as he kept talking about how he was a terrible salesperson and wasn't able to sell anything. He kept saying that he was just visiting his uncle from Ireland. He wouldn't stop talking and smiling, telling me that I probably wore t-shirts sized small. After 10 minutes, we had spent 40 dollars at that stall. The young Irishman gave me strawberry candy and thanked me for making him feel better about his selling skills, even though he was a terrible salesman. I kept that candy, wrapped in its strawberry designed wrapper, for many years after that. I never saw him again.
The middle-aged professor burst into the Microform Media Room where I worked at the university library in Stillwater and exclaimed at me, "Hello there, young person!!!" I leapt from my chair, all the sluggishness and frustration of my life instantly banished as an unknown optimism burst into existence in my chest. The clouds suddenly cleared and the sun shone on me as I realised I wanted to smile and didn't want to sit anymore. I asked the professor how I could help him. I never saw him again.
Florence worked with security in the building across from the Empire State Building that housed the office of Guideposts magazine. She was a middle-aged black woman from Trinidad & Tobago whom I chatted with when I visited the staff at Guideposts on my magical 2007 New York trip. I never saw her again.
The black UPS mailman rode around the Oklahoma State University campus every day in his black truck and brown uniform. I met him as a desk clerk in my residence call where he would drop by everyday on his rounds delivering mail. It was one of my duties as a desk clerk to receive and distribute mail in the mailboxes of the buildings' residents. I can't remember the mailman's name - was it Robert? He was a gentleman and would great me with a compliment and a smile every time. Even after I stopped working at the residence hall, we'd wave and greet each other everytime his truck passed me by anywhere, on-campus or off. He made me feel like a pretty lady. I left OSU in 2005. I never saw him again.
A dusky and statuesque waitress was serving me that late night at the no-name Los Angeles diner. She wore a stereotypical turquoise waitress outfit that went down to her knees, complete with a white apron and white wrap cloth tiara on her crown. She looked Hispanic. Her hair was long, black, and thick, and her skin was the colour of hot chocolate. Her lipstick was a soft dark brown. She asked me where I was from. I said India. Her eyes lit up and she smiled. She was from Bangladesh, she said. She told me her name and I told her mine. We were both Muslims. I looked around the dimly lit diner with its plastic covered seats and plastic-covered menus. What was this beautiful woman doing here, so far away from home, in this town full of freaks and perverts? I never saw her again.
The old woman who looked like she was made of wet white paper was looking at me expectantly, her eyes shining. I told her I liked her gold pendant and that she looked pretty. She clasped her hands and her voice shook. "Oh, honey..." she said as she smiled, her eyes never away from my face. The other university kids who were part of my volunteer group in Stillwater stood a few feet away from us, nervous and uncomfortable in the old folk's home. They were all young, all under 20, and the smell of death, decay, and napthalene made them uneasy. Maybe it's because they were American, or maybe I was used to being around old people, but I felt more comfortable at the home than with them. We didn't stay at the home for more than 10 minutes. I met that old woman in 2000. I never saw her again.
My friend and I were buying movie tickets for the new Mr. Bean movie at the AMC near Times Square. I noticed that the counter had the new Master Card smart card reader installed. I got excited and began to hum the tune of the commercial, a funny little ad that had had the card reader beeping to the tune of Strauss's 'Blue Danube'. The young black fellow working at the counter sang with me. We all laughed. I never saw him again.
When I was in kindergarten in Muscat in the early 80s, our school had hired elderly Omani women to help the teachers take care of the little children. I spent many hours sitting in the lap of the old Omani woman in my class. She was short, strongly built, dark, and had a wide nose. Sh wore colourful cotton Omani clothes. I remember her in a dark green and black outfit. A long scarf covered her hair, and the only parts of her body that were visible were her chubby hands and feet and her face. She didn't speak much. She didn't know any English or much Hindi or Urdu, and the Indian children, most of them South Indian, didn't know any Arabic but only smatterings of English and mostly Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Telegu, Tamil, Kannada, etc. I never saw her again.
The tall strawberry-blonde young Irish fellow at the Navy Pier in Chicago was selling t-shirts and bags that changed colour in sunlight. I didn't want to buy anything, but he stopped my mother and I and laughed and joked as he kept talking about how he was a terrible salesperson and wasn't able to sell anything. He kept saying that he was just visiting his uncle from Ireland. He wouldn't stop talking and smiling, telling me that I probably wore t-shirts sized small. After 10 minutes, we had spent 40 dollars at that stall. The young Irishman gave me strawberry candy and thanked me for making him feel better about his selling skills, even though he was a terrible salesman. I kept that candy, wrapped in its strawberry designed wrapper, for many years after that. I never saw him again.
The middle-aged professor burst into the Microform Media Room where I worked at the university library in Stillwater and exclaimed at me, "Hello there, young person!!!" I leapt from my chair, all the sluggishness and frustration of my life instantly banished as an unknown optimism burst into existence in my chest. The clouds suddenly cleared and the sun shone on me as I realised I wanted to smile and didn't want to sit anymore. I asked the professor how I could help him. I never saw him again.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Once upon a 9/11
I first moved to the US in 1999. I had just turned 18 and had come to the Oklahoma State University for undergraduate studies. My campus was in Stillwater, a town 80 miles into the country away from the two largest cities of the state. Stillwater would've qualified as rural if it had not been for the university that brought along with it a dynamic and diverse group of people every semester from every corner of the world, students, professors, staff, and their families. Most people on campus were American and a large majority were white, but aside from the usual adjustment and alienation issues that one faces in a new country, it was possible to make new friends rather quickly. If not with the Americans, many of whom were from small towns in Oklahoma or surrounding states in the Bible Belt of America, then with any of the hundreds of foreign students who were all in the same boat as yourself.
In 1999, President Clinton was still in office. Cell phones still charged long-distance fees, not that many people had cell phones in the first place. Most foreign countries did not even use email. Napster was just beginning to get popular with college students across the nation, but many had not even heard of it or knew what it was. ICQ was the number one chat program, and Hotmail had just launched its own version. I remember using it for the first time a few months before and excitedly calling my family to see the alert at the bottom of the chat window that indicated in realtime that the other party was typing from halfway across the world. Most companies did not have websites or include them in advertising. Hardly anyone bought anything online. A home-use PC cost around $1,200, and laptops were only for the jetset. The job market was fantastic. Companies would woo fresh graduates with no experience by the dozens, they were picking people up right, left, and center from all over the country. Giants like Microsoft and IBM were a fixture on every college campus, including ours. A computer science graduate with absolutely no experience was practically guaranteed a job that paid $60,000 annually. Everything was great. In those days, America was on autopilot.
Hardly anybody knew about Islam at that time, and no one seemed to care either. There was no reason for anyone to ask "What is Islam?", people just didn't seem to be thinking on those lines. I was happy to meet Muslims from parts of the world I had never been too - Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Kazakhistan, Lebanon - but I was equally delighted when non-Muslims would approach me with a smile and inquire about my ethnic background. In fact, I preferred interacting with non-Muslims because I found it hard to fit in with the Muslim community in Stillwater. Most of the Muslims were foreigners, and their religious identity came bundled with nationalist, regionalist, linguistic, and cultural ideas that, as foreigners in a completely differently environment, they tried to hold on to extra hard. Even the Arab Muslims were being extra Arab! I enthusiastically attended a few Muslim gatherings that first year, but I always ended up feeling awkward, sometimes unwelcome, and often invisible. Before this I had been wholly raised in the Middle East in a Muslim country and had been around Muslim gatherings all the time, and this new feeling of alienation and sometimes rejection startled me. It never got easier as the years went by. In fact, it became a regular occurrence. From then on I began to shy away from attending Islamic gatherings and kept my religious observances to myself. This would make me the subject of criticism from various quarters over the years and cause me much internal anguish, but my solitude turned out to be the best thing for my spirituality.
I remember when a White American classmate once asked me in freshman year if it was true that the Muslims determined their time of prayer according to the position of the sun. When I confirmed that fact, he nodded and smiled, "Cool!" He asked me if it was true that the Muslims abstained from eating pork. I confirmed that too. He then smiled and added, "actually I'm Jewish; did you know that the Jews and Christians are not supposed to eat pork either?" I had not known that and was excited at this new bit of knowledge. But I'd known many Christians all my life, and they had never had any qualms about eating pork. My bright-blonde short-spikey-haired pasty-white classmate then told me that he ate pork too but technically the Jews and Christians weren't supposed to be eating it. This was exciting. Not only would I have never guessed that my classmate was Jewish, but he was the first Jewish person I had ever met (that I knew of). It was wonderful to be able to exchange stories with other people, it gave you a sort of respectful feeling at the end of it. If this was any indication of what my American collegiate experience would entail, then this was going to be the best phase of my life.
Those days hardly seem real now. 9/11 happened 2 years after I began college. The minute I heard the word 'Muslim' on TV, I panicked. I locked my dorm room door, afraid to even use the common bathroom to brush my teeth. I'd grown up watching the politically motivated communal riots between Hindus and Muslims in India, and I was terrified. The Muslim tag had followed me to America. Pretty soon a bloodthirsty mob would plow down my dorm room door and set me on fire. Many people knew I was Muslim, they would want my blood. I was cornered. How would I go to my classes if I couldn't even go out to brush my teeth?
None of that happened of course. After about 30 minutes, I managed to slip out of my room. I spent the whole day looking over my shoulder as I slipped quietly from class to class. A deathly silence had taken over the usual cheer of the campus. My teachers were having a hard time focussing on their lectures. The president of the university later called an emergency meeting of the International Student Organisation, of which I was a part of, and advised us on safety precautions for all foreign students. For the next many months, security personnel patrolled the campus, available to escort any nervous people anywhere on the campus.
On the whole, I was very impressed with the way America had reacted to 9/11. The government regularly called for public sanity and cautioned against citizen vigilantism. I had never seen morale like this before. If this had been India, the whole Muslim community would have gone into hiding (and this is before the Godhra riots that were to follow some time later). Sure I had less reason to be afraid - I did not look like what most people thought Muslims looked like. Many people still thought I was a Hindu because I looked distinctly Indian. I was a petite girl, I did not have a straggly beard, I did not look Arab, I did not have an Arabic accent. I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't grateful for that disguise. But I loved America and the Americans for the way they were taking the moral high ground. It was incredible. This is why America was the greatest country in the world.
I often reflect on those days. I don't know exactly when it started, but a few years after 9/11, paranoid whispers about Islam/Muslims began to circulate amongst the masses. After a while, I left OSU with a graduate degree and moved to Tulsa. These whispers had never been directed at me, so I'd never taken them seriously, until the day a good American friend forwarded me an email which cautioned all readers to abstain from voting against Obama because, amongst other things, he was a secret Muslim and would destroy the country under his presidency (I've underlined and boldfaced the email as it was in the version I'd received):
"This information needs to be spread EVERYWHERE.......
BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA'S CHURCH
Obama mentioned his church during his appearance with Oprah. It's the Trinity Church of Christ. I found this interesting.
Obama's church:
Please read and go to this church's website www.tucc.org/about.htm and read what is written there. It is very alarming.
Barack Obama is a member of this church and is running for President of the U.S. If you look at the first page of their website, you will learn that this congregation has a non-negotiable commitment to Africa. No where is AMERICA even mentioned. Notice too, what color you will need to be if you should want to join Obama's church... B-L-A-C-K!!! Doesn't look like his choice of religion has improved much over his (former?) Muslim upbringing.
Strip away his nice looks, the big smile and smooth talk and what do you get? Certainly a racist, as plainly defined by the stated position of his church! And possibly a covert worshiper of the Muslim faith, even today. This guy desires to rule over America while his loyalty is totally vested in a Black Africa!
I cannot believe this has not been all over the TV and newspapers. This is why it is so important to pass this message along to all of our family & friends.
To think that Obama has even the slightest
chance in the run for the presidency, is really scary.
Click on the link below:
This is the web page for the church Barack Obama belongs to:
www.tucc.org/about.htm
We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain 'true to our native land,' the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community. The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:
1. A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2. A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY."
I did not know how to take this. Had my friend, who had been so kind to me as a foreign student, forgotten that I was a Muslim? Or had it not registered to her because I was Indian and she assumed Hindu? I then ran into an OSU professor I had known who had always been very supportive and encouraging of me, and he told me a lot of frightening things about Islam and Muslims that were inaccurate. When I told him that I had never come across these concepts in Islam, even while being raised in a Muslim Arab country, he said I was probably a good kind of Muslim. I was completely alarmed.
Around this time things got pretty vicious all around in a very short period of time. Seriously hurtful anti-Islamic websites and images sprouted by the hundreds. The 2008 presidential campaign was underway. Educated influential people were saying insane things about Islam on TV and other media. I read a whole feature in a Tulsa magazine about Islam, including statements from some people who left it. People were getting so hostile just with words, it was frightening. I wasn't sure where to draw the line between free speech and hate speech. By the last few years of my stay in America, this hostility towards Islam got overwhelming. I wanted to counter it and scream, "Stop! Don't believe them! That's complete lies! I'm telling you so!", but I was just one voice, and nobody was listening to me. I had an audience of maybe 5 or 10, while these people on TV with their websites had worldwide followers. I just wanted them to stop saturating the air with hurtful lies.
I don't live in America anymore. I still keep my religious observances to myself yet I grieve over how Islamophobia (I hate how that word gives the phenomenon a permanent identity) is now an actual word. I see debates about Islam on every TV channel. Everyone's writing about it (even me!). Draw Mohammed Day, Burn a Quran Day, Islam-is-coming doomsday prophets, Cordoba House, mistrust of an American president over religious identity (he is not a Muslim for sure, I'm sure no Muslim thinks he is either). It upsets me how people unite across borders over their dislike for Muslims. I would've never believed you if you'd told me 10 years ago that in a few years every continent would be dissecting the details of Islam to the extent that most Muslims aren't even aware of. But today, in this world where every Muslim feels hyperalert all the time about having to answer back to accusations about Islam being flung at them from every direction, I wonder if a time will ever come again when a discussion about Islam will end with a simple 'cool'.
In 1999, President Clinton was still in office. Cell phones still charged long-distance fees, not that many people had cell phones in the first place. Most foreign countries did not even use email. Napster was just beginning to get popular with college students across the nation, but many had not even heard of it or knew what it was. ICQ was the number one chat program, and Hotmail had just launched its own version. I remember using it for the first time a few months before and excitedly calling my family to see the alert at the bottom of the chat window that indicated in realtime that the other party was typing from halfway across the world. Most companies did not have websites or include them in advertising. Hardly anyone bought anything online. A home-use PC cost around $1,200, and laptops were only for the jetset. The job market was fantastic. Companies would woo fresh graduates with no experience by the dozens, they were picking people up right, left, and center from all over the country. Giants like Microsoft and IBM were a fixture on every college campus, including ours. A computer science graduate with absolutely no experience was practically guaranteed a job that paid $60,000 annually. Everything was great. In those days, America was on autopilot.
Hardly anybody knew about Islam at that time, and no one seemed to care either. There was no reason for anyone to ask "What is Islam?", people just didn't seem to be thinking on those lines. I was happy to meet Muslims from parts of the world I had never been too - Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Kazakhistan, Lebanon - but I was equally delighted when non-Muslims would approach me with a smile and inquire about my ethnic background. In fact, I preferred interacting with non-Muslims because I found it hard to fit in with the Muslim community in Stillwater. Most of the Muslims were foreigners, and their religious identity came bundled with nationalist, regionalist, linguistic, and cultural ideas that, as foreigners in a completely differently environment, they tried to hold on to extra hard. Even the Arab Muslims were being extra Arab! I enthusiastically attended a few Muslim gatherings that first year, but I always ended up feeling awkward, sometimes unwelcome, and often invisible. Before this I had been wholly raised in the Middle East in a Muslim country and had been around Muslim gatherings all the time, and this new feeling of alienation and sometimes rejection startled me. It never got easier as the years went by. In fact, it became a regular occurrence. From then on I began to shy away from attending Islamic gatherings and kept my religious observances to myself. This would make me the subject of criticism from various quarters over the years and cause me much internal anguish, but my solitude turned out to be the best thing for my spirituality.
I remember when a White American classmate once asked me in freshman year if it was true that the Muslims determined their time of prayer according to the position of the sun. When I confirmed that fact, he nodded and smiled, "Cool!" He asked me if it was true that the Muslims abstained from eating pork. I confirmed that too. He then smiled and added, "actually I'm Jewish; did you know that the Jews and Christians are not supposed to eat pork either?" I had not known that and was excited at this new bit of knowledge. But I'd known many Christians all my life, and they had never had any qualms about eating pork. My bright-blonde short-spikey-haired pasty-white classmate then told me that he ate pork too but technically the Jews and Christians weren't supposed to be eating it. This was exciting. Not only would I have never guessed that my classmate was Jewish, but he was the first Jewish person I had ever met (that I knew of). It was wonderful to be able to exchange stories with other people, it gave you a sort of respectful feeling at the end of it. If this was any indication of what my American collegiate experience would entail, then this was going to be the best phase of my life.
Those days hardly seem real now. 9/11 happened 2 years after I began college. The minute I heard the word 'Muslim' on TV, I panicked. I locked my dorm room door, afraid to even use the common bathroom to brush my teeth. I'd grown up watching the politically motivated communal riots between Hindus and Muslims in India, and I was terrified. The Muslim tag had followed me to America. Pretty soon a bloodthirsty mob would plow down my dorm room door and set me on fire. Many people knew I was Muslim, they would want my blood. I was cornered. How would I go to my classes if I couldn't even go out to brush my teeth?
None of that happened of course. After about 30 minutes, I managed to slip out of my room. I spent the whole day looking over my shoulder as I slipped quietly from class to class. A deathly silence had taken over the usual cheer of the campus. My teachers were having a hard time focussing on their lectures. The president of the university later called an emergency meeting of the International Student Organisation, of which I was a part of, and advised us on safety precautions for all foreign students. For the next many months, security personnel patrolled the campus, available to escort any nervous people anywhere on the campus.
On the whole, I was very impressed with the way America had reacted to 9/11. The government regularly called for public sanity and cautioned against citizen vigilantism. I had never seen morale like this before. If this had been India, the whole Muslim community would have gone into hiding (and this is before the Godhra riots that were to follow some time later). Sure I had less reason to be afraid - I did not look like what most people thought Muslims looked like. Many people still thought I was a Hindu because I looked distinctly Indian. I was a petite girl, I did not have a straggly beard, I did not look Arab, I did not have an Arabic accent. I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't grateful for that disguise. But I loved America and the Americans for the way they were taking the moral high ground. It was incredible. This is why America was the greatest country in the world.
I often reflect on those days. I don't know exactly when it started, but a few years after 9/11, paranoid whispers about Islam/Muslims began to circulate amongst the masses. After a while, I left OSU with a graduate degree and moved to Tulsa. These whispers had never been directed at me, so I'd never taken them seriously, until the day a good American friend forwarded me an email which cautioned all readers to abstain from voting against Obama because, amongst other things, he was a secret Muslim and would destroy the country under his presidency (I've underlined and boldfaced the email as it was in the version I'd received):
"This information needs to be spread EVERYWHERE.......
BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA'S CHURCH
Obama mentioned his church during his appearance with Oprah. It's the Trinity Church of Christ. I found this interesting.
Obama's church:
Please read and go to this church's website www.tucc.org/about.htm and read what is written there. It is very alarming.
Barack Obama is a member of this church and is running for President of the U.S. If you look at the first page of their website, you will learn that this congregation has a non-negotiable commitment to Africa. No where is AMERICA even mentioned. Notice too, what color you will need to be if you should want to join Obama's church... B-L-A-C-K!!! Doesn't look like his choice of religion has improved much over his (former?) Muslim upbringing.
Strip away his nice looks, the big smile and smooth talk and what do you get? Certainly a racist, as plainly defined by the stated position of his church! And possibly a covert worshiper of the Muslim faith, even today. This guy desires to rule over America while his loyalty is totally vested in a Black Africa!
I cannot believe this has not been all over the TV and newspapers. This is why it is so important to pass this message along to all of our family & friends.
To think that Obama has even the slightest
chance in the run for the presidency, is really scary.
Click on the link below:
This is the web page for the church Barack Obama belongs to:
www.tucc.org/about.htm
We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain 'true to our native land,' the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community. The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:
1. A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2. A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY."
I did not know how to take this. Had my friend, who had been so kind to me as a foreign student, forgotten that I was a Muslim? Or had it not registered to her because I was Indian and she assumed Hindu? I then ran into an OSU professor I had known who had always been very supportive and encouraging of me, and he told me a lot of frightening things about Islam and Muslims that were inaccurate. When I told him that I had never come across these concepts in Islam, even while being raised in a Muslim Arab country, he said I was probably a good kind of Muslim. I was completely alarmed.
Around this time things got pretty vicious all around in a very short period of time. Seriously hurtful anti-Islamic websites and images sprouted by the hundreds. The 2008 presidential campaign was underway. Educated influential people were saying insane things about Islam on TV and other media. I read a whole feature in a Tulsa magazine about Islam, including statements from some people who left it. People were getting so hostile just with words, it was frightening. I wasn't sure where to draw the line between free speech and hate speech. By the last few years of my stay in America, this hostility towards Islam got overwhelming. I wanted to counter it and scream, "Stop! Don't believe them! That's complete lies! I'm telling you so!", but I was just one voice, and nobody was listening to me. I had an audience of maybe 5 or 10, while these people on TV with their websites had worldwide followers. I just wanted them to stop saturating the air with hurtful lies.
I don't live in America anymore. I still keep my religious observances to myself yet I grieve over how Islamophobia (I hate how that word gives the phenomenon a permanent identity) is now an actual word. I see debates about Islam on every TV channel. Everyone's writing about it (even me!). Draw Mohammed Day, Burn a Quran Day, Islam-is-coming doomsday prophets, Cordoba House, mistrust of an American president over religious identity (he is not a Muslim for sure, I'm sure no Muslim thinks he is either). It upsets me how people unite across borders over their dislike for Muslims. I would've never believed you if you'd told me 10 years ago that in a few years every continent would be dissecting the details of Islam to the extent that most Muslims aren't even aware of. But today, in this world where every Muslim feels hyperalert all the time about having to answer back to accusations about Islam being flung at them from every direction, I wonder if a time will ever come again when a discussion about Islam will end with a simple 'cool'.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Aishwarya Bledel?
Aishwarya Rai and Alexis Bledel - the real Gilmore girls? They often looked related to me...!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)