What does it say when the death of rhinos in Assam’s floods makes it to national news, but not the plight of lakhs of Assamese people? The media seems to be a willing partner in perpetrating the idea that the people of the Northeast are not important. Keeping people from the Northeast invisible, whether it’s in the news or mass media, is probably why the rest of India thinks they are either Chinese or Korean or Japanese. Anything but Indian.
Go back to China, a cab driver told me in a rage in his broken English after I had a tiff with him for refusing to drop me at the doorstep. I came to this city to pursue my passion for journalism from my hometown Darjeeling, a small town cradled in the foothills of Himalayas, bordering Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
And it’s not just this driver in Chennai. It started in my school days, when I was too tender to understand the racial differences. I used to wonder why people in other cities I visited during my vacations called me “Chinese”. I sang the Jana-gana-mana in my school every day and pledged that all Indian are my brothers and sisters too. One of my friends from Manipur who studied in a top fashion institute in Chennai was asked if he eats dog meat.
“Are you from China?” asked a colleague recently. When I gently replied that I was an Indian, I got a wide-eyed stare with raised eyebrows and a smirk that gestured “are you sure?”
Though this was not an uncommon experience and I’ve been facing this every time I venture to a new city, this did not feel right. I could not ignore their ignorance anymore.
Besides China, I am identified with Korea, Nepal and Japan.
Coming to the new city I was nervous if I would be accepted by people socially and culturally. I am not an idli-dosa person, but more of a rice and noodle kind. I knew I would have to compromise on food and that language would be a herculean barrier.
“People in Chennai will only speak Tamil even if they know English, they abhor Hindi,” I was warned by my cousins who had lived here for a while.
That made me anxious, especially because I am in the field of journalism and interacting with people is my part of day-to-day duty.
But within a month’s time I had developed great fondness for pongal and dosa. I even started enjoying the Tamil language and music though I am still not able to string together a sentence properly. I was relieved to find restaurants that served food from my hometown like momo, thukpa and shyapta.
“Chennai is better than what you told me” I told my cousin over the phone. “Well but aren’t they racist?” she counteracted.
(Sourced from agencies, Feature image courtesy:dinosaur-pantsdeviantart.com)
