Black and White! So integrated, yet so far away. I will tell you a story I picked from some movie, I believe. There was a bevy of housewives discussing their daily lives in one of the ladies’ home on a hot summer leisurely afternoon. A laundry man appeared outside, and before anybody could utter anything, he said, “Only Whites please.” The black lady proceeded to bring the White Clothes only, leaving the laundry man a bit disapproved. Another black lady present there said, “He meant only White People.”
Though the meaning was apparent, I can grasp the meaning of its context only now. I am sorry; I think I can understand it now, but I know it is beyond my cognition, yet. It is beyond anyone’s cognition, I should say. In the above story, no one was racist, but everyone was feeling it somewhere. The ladies were so closely knit but still there was a divide, created unobtrusively between them.
I feel that divide every time and everywhere around me. In fact, I saw that divide inside me. I was born an Indian, and did my preliminary studies, higher studies, graduation, post-graduation better than most of my countrymen could afford. I led an absolutely fine life, but somewhere all these years was also buried deep inside that complexity of colour and have-nots. I am brown, and as with most of Indians, have a fascination towards white, more so with a feeling of deference. All my life, I couldn’t abide by this whole logic why I am less than others. Leave my feelings, why people all around me feel white is better than brown, and brown is better than black. I could see people staring wide-eyed at some American White couple, and also sniggering at some African Black one. Someone having a white girlfriend would be considered princely, while someone with a black one would be the butt of all taunts.
I moved outside India three years ago. The cloistered feelings were challenged more often than not now. A brown guy walking the streets amidst the crowd of white people; eyes fixed on you, some with disaffectedness, some with insularity and some out of mere curiousness. You go to McDonald’s, and there is some suppressed chirping around you. You go to watch the movie in a cinema hall, and you leave behind a group of young guys and girls smirking in an incomprehensible language. Yet, I was never abused, taunted or racially profiled openly at any of the places. Not even once. The shopkeepers were nice, the landlords helpful, the locals guiding, everyone, in fact, as normal as one could be. Since then I have traveled to a lot of places: America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and met a lot of people. I have shared seats on airplanes, dined in restaurants, danced in discos, played in grounds etc with people of different nationalities, colours and religions. Nowhere I was assaulted or affronted directly. Where was the fucking racism?
Yet I felt that divide, a veneer separating me from others around and vice-versa. Then one morning I could detect where that divide was. I was in a hurry to go to my office, and boarded the empty lift from my top floor. Down two levels, the lift stopped, and outside appeared, a white man. At first, he flinched and stopped, gave a worried look, finally sported a courteous smile, and walked inside. I stepped aside, careful to leave some space between us. Down two further levels, the lift stopped again, and I was ready for another encounter. But this time, appeared another man, a brown Bangladeshi. He hesitated to see two of us. We made a face this time around, and gave a perfunctory smile at the end. He then walked inside, careful to leave some space from the rest two of us. The lift then descended nonchalantly to the ground floor, but during those moments, the whole world of human love & its formality, and the great divide was exhibited in front of me. I was shell-shocked, because for the first time, I wondered how tightly I have been conscripted, strait-jacketed and faulted by the long-held-developed notions and beliefs. Not only I, but all three of us on that day on that lift were mere servants to the thoughts of the world.
I haven’t been able to fully extricate myself from these notions. It will take some time to dispose of the thoughts of a lifetime and the world around you. But I feel my life is much better now. I can understand the queries in the eyes and minds of the fixated onlookers on me, and can also appreciate the undertones of brown, black and less recognized people. I still prefer white women, but can also date a black woman, if time comes. It feels mighty different now, I must say. And have also realized, the insecure and the superior feelings, both at the same time, not only remain limited to colour. They are, in fact, present in every aspect of our lives: region, religion, nation, states, wealth etc. Even the wealthy Americans, the suave Europeans, the strong Africans, the intellectual Chinese and Indians, in fact, all the fucking great Earthians, can’t help feel these double feelings, based on some radically-generated and pre-conceived notions, at some aspect and point of their life and time. Such is the great vagary of life, and hence it remains beyond my cognition.
