We are not racists. No. Never.

This post first appeared on Halabol

I’m glad I landed in Africa. It’s the one place where everybody from every other part of the world gets to be unapologetically racist without having to worry about who’s peeping over the shoulder or who’s going to punch a hole through your face for letting certain words slip out of your tongue. You get to call the blacks black because, well, they are black and they are everywhere. How wrong can you go with it? And there is only that much you can talk about Burberry and De beers and trips to Las Vegas and how many cars you have at your disposal. Once bored, you get to talk freely about the things that have long stopped working in these parts (or never worked in the first place), systems that are defunct, people that are barbaric, practices that are tribal, drains that are clogged, governments that are corrupt, minds that are dull, morals that are missing, words that cannot be trusted, and the world that this world is not.

The whites, too, don’t have it easy. In today’s world, the white-man’s burden is in having to tolerate, besides the newly-found economic sprint in the black feet, the proliferating hordes of Chinese who don’t give a damn to whether or not you’re a white, the cunning Koreans who will invariably invade the golf courses en masse, the abrasive noisy browns only too eager to do the white-thing, the nose-in-the-air Arabs who think money is the answer to everything (it isn’t? you think so?), the - phew, there’re just far too many niggling irritants in this world to keep count of now. But as long as there are browns and yellows and wheats and blacks, the whites will remain whites. So they clink their glasses and do their social-cause thingy at the charity events and complain that the pool water has half a percent more chlorine than their skin can tolerate and balk at a pathetic little piece of dry leaf floating in the overhead tank and they make sure their gated compounds are secured and bolted and fastened and electrified and made impenetrable a hundred times over and they go to bed sighing ah, a white man’s got to do what a white man’s got to do.    

But we’re Indians; and we’re not racists. Never. We are simply more of a lion let loose among a pack of wild boars. Naturally, He, the alpha Indian-in-Africa, is invincible, and is equally a She. Never mind the hours of power cut He faced in his city back home, the dark continent deserves its epithet; never mind the unending shenanigans of the corrupt back home, the term becomes synonymous with the people’s intent here; never mind the constant struggle getting and retaining a domestic help back home these days, She won’t tire of waxing brusque of the help here - the wretched lazy good-for-nothing slobs, all. There is an inexplicable joy in calling a black a black in these parts – it allows for a good laugh and some delicious desi bonding rounds of beer and butter chicken. And should you be heard using the b-word, just switch to the uber-safe kalus the moment the house-maid drops that steel tumbler into the kitchen sink to remind everyone of her black presence.     

If one were to go by the colour of skin, I was born nearly white, turned brown by the time I was in Std III A, turned yellow with jaundice sometime later, and am now black, thanks to my midday swims. My locus standi is, therefore, questionable when I mouth platitudes like, but why can’t we just see them as perfectly normal people who breathe and live and think and feel like people anywhere else in the world? So, I need to qualify further. But I like the people here, I say; the happiest warmest souls on earth despite all rotten odds, and I’m cut short by He saying they’re not-quite-human; look at the way they shoot and loot and riot and kill. Yes, but we do that too, in much the same ways, I say, and She says we’re light-years-ahead; there’s no comparison- they don’t have it in them to rise above themselves. Is it, I ask, but just look at all the wonderful talent they have in their midst, and another He and She butt in saying, Frauds-minds and drugs peddling, that’s the talent; their minds work properly only for things they shouldn’t. Is it, I ask and then point out, just look at the women, the strong-willed the women, and all the He’s and the She’s say, the dark ages is where they still belong; look at them take on wives after wives only to have more sons. Yes, I say, but they don’t kill their daughters or burn their wives and… the hostess announces dinner, and our superiority gets suspended. For the moment.

With my plate in hand, I saunter into the balcony where a part of the gathering has moved. Before I’ve taken my next step to join them, I hear someone say, these kalus really have no brains; all they’re good at is singing and dancing and running and voodoo and drugs. A wiser one makes His valuable contribution to shared delight, junglees, all! And the gurgle of sated chuckles turns into a howlarious laugh.    

We are not racists. No. We are just being ourselves. 

Shona Raja Beta

This post first appeared on Halabol

I look at my shona baby and feel my heart melt like the thick blobs of Haagen Dazs Cookies and Cream that he has left uneaten on the plate in front of him. How adorable he looks slumped in that chair hunched over my iPhone, lost to the world. On the spoon remains an untouched apology of what had been a firm tiny scoop that I had cut out for him a little while ago and begged him to eat.

He doesn’t like eating on his own, my shona baby. And I love to feed him. Makes for such great bonding. I pick up the spoon and take it to his mouth. Eat it, my Raja beta, I say. He grimaces, as if about to puke. My darling shona baby will eat it now and make me feel so proud na, I cajole him. He seems not to have heard it, so I give him an emotional bait of eat it my darling baby, just a little, a teeny weeny bit, and make your mamma feel so proud of you. He shakes his head and flicks his locks with reckless abandon that captures the madness of Maradona and sinisterness of Shoaib. Little bit you eat my shona baby, I egg him on. Kill it fucker, hisses shona, scoring another goal on my iPhone and squinting harder for a clearer view of the scores. He’s such a fine player, my boy, that he’ll put any other child his age to shame.

I’m bored now, he says throwing the mobile phone towards me. He reaches across the table for my iPad, but I say No, a firm NO. Then I am not going to sit in this stupid place, he says stomping and rising up. I know what he wants to do. He wants to sit in the car and play on his own iPad which I refused to be brought up to the parlour. You’ve got to be strict with children, you know; I’m not the one to spoil my child rotten. But look at him, what anger, re baba!

Eat some ice-cream, shona, I say. At least taste it. You were the one who wanted to come here all afternoon. He grimaces again in that awfully cute way. Ufffo, leave me, Mom. I don’t care about this stupid ice-cream and I don’t want to speak to you now, he screams and kicks the chair he was sitting on and topples it over. I’m afraid he may have hurt himself. He isn’t even wearing his shoes; he’d told me before leaving that the only condition he will come with me is if I let him go in his Crocs. Of course, my shona silly, why should I ever have a problem with that?! 

The waiter runs to us to ask if everything is all right. Get lost, you idiot, my shona yells. What rage, at this age, imagine! And all this because I didn’t let him carry his iPad! Children these days, they have a mind of their own! Mine is total CEO material, I tell you.

I ignore the waiter and tell my shona to calm down. Relax, my baby, I say. It’s all right if you don’t feel like having ice cream now. Don’t get worked up; how will you do your homework in this mood? Accha listen, how about popping by at some toyshop in this mall and you pick up something for yourself? That’ll make you feel better, na? Let’s go.

Shona’s eyes don’t lighten up much but he looks a lot less grumpy now as he heads for the door. He is refusing to walk with me, how cute! He picks up some game CD in the shop downstairs and looks okay now, thank God! I tell him he will not get to play with it until he has finished his homework. He makes a face and says I am always unreasonable; his friends get to do whatever they like. I laugh at the big word he just used and tell him I am so because I don’t want to spoil him silly. I see him drag his feet to the car and can quite sense his disappointment. I’m his mother, after all. My poor child has had a long day. And I know I am being too hard on him.

And so, Surprise! I say as I unlock the car door. Today my shona is going to drive us out of the mall! Oh, that spontaneous hug from him is worth the priciest of possessions in this world! I adjust the seat and place him between my lap and hand him the steering wheel. Don’t worry, I am pretty much there with the other controls; he is a bit short for his age, so his legs don’t reach down there yet.   

He turns on the ignition, and we are off. Seeing him handle the steering wheel with such ease and confidence, my heart swells with pride a hundred folds. Look at him, my big boy. Just ten, and how matured, how able! He’ll grow up to be an invincible young man, this, my darling shona baby.

A real fine man. Yes.