Given my present physical and mental state, I have little patience with many things that I would previously have 1. ignored, 2. laughed at and ignored, 3. silently abused the perpetrator and ignored. Since I am unable to do any of the above now, I fret and fume and drive myself into an angry frenzy. While I continue to look forward to an end to this disturbing state, allow me to narrate this one incident to you, and you can judge me as you like.
A 'friend' is staying with us at the moment. Please note, I use the term 'friend' in the loosest possible sense. This friend had previously exhibited great interest in reading, especially thrillers. Now you know that I am not the biggest thrill-seeker, but I was instantly reminded of Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I have recently read it and would recommend it to anyone who claims to have a passing interest in the written word and the contemporary world order. My friend claimed he was interested in both. I heartily gave him my copy.
This happened a couple of days back. In the meanwhile, I noticed that Hamid had been kept aside and his place had been taken by a suspense thriller that has accidentally found its way into my book shelves, I know not from where. I thought perhaps Hamid's style did not agree with my friend's taste and left it at that. Not everyone has to like everything I read - not everyone has to like Hamid.
So it came as a nasty surprise to me when my friend approached me a couple of hours ago and said, "Can you give me something to read, something completely in the nature of fiction, something simple and lighthearted." While I scanned my bookshelves and selected mentally a list of options, he went on to add, "and please, nothing of the kind where a Muslim bugger is telling his story." My thoughts stopped dead in their tracks. EXCUSE ME? I shouted in my head - suffice it to say, I would have had a fight then and there if I could.
While A distracted the friend with something inoffensively un-Islamic, a sequence of incidents that have happened over the last few days rushed through my mind. The mild censoring of my choice of music (Sufi=Islamic according to some), the constant reference to one strand of my ancestry, and the constant praises showered on the deep-rootedness and past and present glories of the Dravidian culture have all been adding up to this moment. In the midst of the anger and disbelief, one question bothered me most - why does it bother me so much?
So I am technically a Hindu. But to be honest, I have been brought up in such a mixed environment of religions, atheism and cultures that I truly don't care for these identities anymore. I seamlessly blend into both religious and non-religious groups. The concept of god is more utilitarian than anything else. More than anything else, both A and I believe in being and doing good, minding our own business and accepting people with all their diversities. What is so wrong with that?
Perhaps that is why I cannot tolerate intolerance. What right does anyone have to consider him/herself better than another person? You may not agree with the views of a 'Muslim bugger' but how rigid are you that you won't even hear his views? And you believe yourself to be a good human being? I am afraid, definitions of 'good' appear to be very different.
After agonising over this issue, it was decided that the only what to settle the mind and the rumbling tummy was with a banana. At least the banana doesn't care who eats it, Hindu or Muslim. And it soothes my nerves and tummy despite my questionable taste in music. I say we should have a religion based on nature, a religion that is nurturing and uplifting like Abida's singing, rainbows, bear hugs and bananas. Who knows, religion might actually be of some use to humanity then.
4 comments:
yes.. its enraging, frightening, disappointing, and just so damn unfair to hear people talk to "muslim buggers" and the like. Talk of "those ppl", and once the differentiation has been made of course, its simple to assign any number of "bad" things to "them". How they are dirty, outsiders, criminals, this that and the other.
i think every nation and culture finds its own pet hate, and conviniently attributes everything unpleasant to the "other". The above adjectives which I've actually heard said about muslims, sound suspiciously like the ones used for blacks. wierd.
So true. The moment it becomes a matter of us against them, it loses all objectivity - the most supposedly rational act like imbeciles, without reason or judgement. It is so easy to lose perspective, to reduce another human to something less. It is this ease with which so called normal people fill their hearts with hatred that amazes me. Almost as if the rational parts of their minds are selectively shut down and cease to exist. Perhaps this is what creates fundamentalism, this ability to stop feeling and thinking like you normally would.
What puzzles me is why this 'friend' is living in your house in the first place. I noted your use of inverted commas and I assume you weren't too keen on him even before the incident. What he said is the kind of thing which, if said by an acquaintance or work colleague, might tactfully be skirted around (although it would also be legitimate to ask just why such an insensitive bigoted pig deserves tact), but having him living under your roof (you don't say how long he was there) must have made the whole incident twice as bad and difficult to deal with. As I say, I'm surprised you had bothered to have him living in your home.
Patrick - I just read your comment. And it made me smile. You cannot imagine how many times I have played this scene in my head when I give up in a fit of fury and ask such 'friends' to leave. I think it might have something to do with the difference in culture, how we are conditioned to behave, but I just could not do it. And I know, when the next time comes around, I still won't be able to do it. I am not trying to justify my inaction. I am only stating what is.
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