Mind it you cannot earn it, you are born with it! I am talking about the minority tag, a priced asset in India, which entitles a person to numerous sops thrown by our vo
te-bank driven governments. Being a minority in India might mean a relatively comfortable life for one but it isn’t the same abroad. The fact is that everybody is a minority in one or the other way, a thinking that got reinforced when I traveled to Europe.
After my flight landed in my stopover at Helsinki, Finland, I started having a strange feeling. At the Airport, lot of activities were going on at the same time - people walking, kids playing, groups of friends chattering, waiters serving food and so on; but I was missing something, I was away from my fraternity. I was getting slightly uncomfortable, not because of any jetlag, but because of this odd feeling. And this feeling only got exaggerated each time I looked myself in the mirror. I was different!
The big blow – I was in the land of Caucasian (white) majority, wandering with a minority tag. No ce
rtificate or announcements required; m
y overall identity and appearance were testimony to my status. Each time I got closer to nonnative culture, language, people, traditions, and food, I felt myself much glued to this tag.
I was wondering whether I would get any special treatment or attention as these people get when they visit India. I don’t know if I was also termed something, the way they are termed ‘Goras’ in most of India, but I did observe that many times people avoided sitting next to me in buses & planes and also avoided making eye contact for longer.
Despite having the taste of minority, I realized that not everybody was same. I got opportunities to talk to people, make friends and share unique perspectives, many times because of my ‘m’ status. People were indeed interested in knowing about where I came from i.e. India and its diverse culture. I was always very excited while telling them that they would not believe that India is one, if they had seen all its parts. By the time my trip was about to finish, I was quite comfortable carrying my identity in the land of strangers. I had never felt so strongly attached to my Indian identity.
te-bank driven governments. Being a minority in India might mean a relatively comfortable life for one but it isn’t the same abroad. The fact is that everybody is a minority in one or the other way, a thinking that got reinforced when I traveled to Europe.After my flight landed in my stopover at Helsinki, Finland, I started having a strange feeling. At the Airport, lot of activities were going on at the same time - people walking, kids playing, groups of friends chattering, waiters serving food and so on; but I was missing something, I was away from my fraternity. I was getting slightly uncomfortable, not because of any jetlag, but because of this odd feeling. And this feeling only got exaggerated each time I looked myself in the mirror. I was different!
The big blow – I was in the land of Caucasian (white) majority, wandering with a minority tag. No ce
rtificate or announcements required; m
y overall identity and appearance were testimony to my status. Each time I got closer to nonnative culture, language, people, traditions, and food, I felt myself much glued to this tag.I was wondering whether I would get any special treatment or attention as these people get when they visit India. I don’t know if I was also termed something, the way they are termed ‘Goras’ in most of India, but I did observe that many times people avoided sitting next to me in buses & planes and also avoided making eye contact for longer.
Despite having the taste of minority, I realized that not everybody was same. I got opportunities to talk to people, make friends and share unique perspectives, many times because of my ‘m’ status. People were indeed interested in knowing about where I came from i.e. India and its diverse culture. I was always very excited while telling them that they would not believe that India is one, if they had seen all its parts. By the time my trip was about to finish, I was quite comfortable carrying my identity in the land of strangers. I had never felt so strongly attached to my Indian identity.
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