Friday, April 14, 2006

Racism re-experienced

This is the first time I may be using four-letter words and the like in my writing, because if what I'm about to describe is not an incident that can trigger anger in me, I don't know what will.
On
Vishu day, the first day of the Tamil new year, after a placid day, I went to play football with some friends. A bunch of 15-16 year old girls with cheap vodka bottle in hand seemed to appear out of nowhere and raided the pitch. We, at the other end of the field, thought they were chatting with a lady colleague and a colleague's wife.
They used the 'B' word and ladies with us shrivelled. While leaving, the girls spat on a male colleague. Waiting patiently was not his forte, but he did. Then when it was too much to handle, he said 'Bitch'. This was enough to flare up the obese bitch (yeah she was) in the girl's group.
"Fuckin' Asians. This is my country, I can do what I like. I have a knife in my pocket. Our boyfriends are here to take care of you...blah this and blah that" and so on went her incessant blabbering. The other ones were less vocal but more active in kicking our football. Then their fun went too far when they kicked the football onto the highway nearby.
Blinded by anger at getting spat on my shoes by then, I was running behind them and didn't realise that I was on a high-speed highway and could have been killed by a speeding car. I am sure all the five of us on the field have never controlled our fists to this extent before. The girls were mere 15-16 years and we could have had them for breakfast without letting out a burp, but retaliation would have landed us in jail for hitting minors. Their vocabulary never went beyond four-letter words and they wanted us to talk like them. Not in a million years could we go down to that level. In this north-eastern part of the country, the standard of their English was as pathetic (even in its birth place) as it could be.
Something like this happened on a lesser scale sometime back and I chose to ignore it, not once but twice. While walking on the roadside, some guys in a car sped past in the opposite direction mouthing obscenities about Asians and almost spitting on me. This was during the July blasts and I forgave them, considering it just another case of misjudging by colour. Another one was a bus driver wantonly driving through a puddle of water to drench us Asians on the sidewalk. We crossed the road in front of him and so I am sure his move was planned.
This naked reality and stark contrast between the excellent Brits I know and these racist shitholes I've encountered amazes me. Of all the good things I have said about professional Brits, this incident eclipses quite a lot of it. By experiencing these unwanted incidents of innate racism, I have no respect whatsoever for this so-called developed country. A developed country is made of its people and if people are shitholes, so is the country. This incident has just made my intention of never settling abroad stronger and more concrete.

I am sure incidents such as these have been experienced by many and I live in hope that some day the tables will turn. In fact, I can already see them turning. India is growing stronger and so are Indians. There will be a time when Indians will look down upon people here because they will be far behind us.

Update:Links to this post -
Desipundit Permalink, Desicritics Permalink

14 comments:

Ravi said...

This was most unfortunate. I can only imagine your frustration. Girls like these can be very annoying, esp. to males with still some chivalry left in them. You don't know what to do with such girls.

I have rarely faced a situation where I was the target of hate. Generally it is always plain anger based on something I'd done. Dealing with hate based on something that I am is on a whole new level.

I hope you come out of this stronger and better equipped to handle such situations later.

Anonymous said...

One incident should not change all impressions. Shit happens.

We in India are pretty racist too. W just dont realize it.

Anonymous said...

You can't let an episode like that make you better. Remember there's something inside each of us that they cannot get to...

You can't let a few people dictate your life, by resolving to never go abroad anywhere.

Just find one such white girl and screw her brains out :-).

bendinggender said...

anonymous1, that's a disgusting last comment. places you not very far from the racist, mean spirited girls that dinesh has described in his post.

Dinesh Babuji said...

Avi: Yes am sure they will.

Ravi: Thanks for the tip to desipundit dude. Yes, I am going to the police straight if any such incident occurs again.

Anonymous: My travel bug will take me abroad for sure. I never will settle aborad is what I've said in the post. And I assure you these racist bastards will not dictate my life. :)Screwing them sure isnt the solution effective to root this out.

Nikita:Screwing them sure isnt the solution as you said.

Łóòň Ġãĺ said...

I am shocked!!

I guess since there are a hell lotta Asians here in London, this stuff doesnt really happen ... or even if it does i havent thankfully experienced anything like that ..... but it is really surprising .... i thought this was all a thing of past ...... and girls 15-16 actually doing that ....... shit !!

I dunno, somehow i feel .... ignoring this isnt correct ... we waiting for Indians to look down upon these people ... umm ... isnt something that we can achieve really soon to be honest and practical..plus living in this country and doing that ... umm..

Anyway, maybe u can take some action against it, report it to someone .... ... or i dunno you might feel its no use now .... but am really surprised ... u shudnt just let it go ... u shudnt!!

cheerz!

(i used to alwez use da word 'cheers' .. even before coming to this country ;p)

Keshi said...

Dinesh thats awful...Im so sorry u guys had to face such a tasteless situation.

Im quite surprised that I still havent faced racism in Aus...Ive been living here for so long but no one ever said anything nasty to me. I guess Im lucky then.

Is England more racist, I dunno...cos I hear some of my friends and cousins who live there saying the same...but Cheesy above says that she hasnt experienced it either. Guess u have to handle such ppl then and there and tell them off in good style.


Keshi.

Ubermensch said...

Hello Dinesh,
Its my first time here, Came following a referral from a friend. I don’t mean to be unkind here but frankly I cant get what you wish to say. If you wanted to share your feelings, im afraid I can only say it’s a rather unfortunate incident. But here you seem to be implying something about racism, in which I find a lot of distortions.im not denying that it doesn’t have any racist subtletones at all but then what exactly is your idea of racism? That a few teenage gals who don’t think better of themselves verbally provoked you ( of course with racial lyrics )while seemingly under the influence of alcohol(vodka) and you couldn’t get aggressive at them because you feared imprisonment? For any place worth its salt or sausage it happens all over. As a Londoner looks down upon liverpooler as skouser or an auto driver in Bangalore pilfering money off a delhite in Bangalore for the first time . May be don’t like your colour, Chances are they called you that because they hardly know anything else to call you by , that doesn’t , just in itself make them racists as you woudnt be if you had called back at them, white scrubbers!
Then you go on to compare nations, one where in people get ‘killed’ because they belong to a particular sect or caste or religion. That must be nothing.
No I don’t want to tease you here, its just that I was frustrated about people conveniently moulding their own ideas of racism. And how naïve it is to expect everyone to be everyone else? That doesn’t happen , ever, outside theory . If you are interested that was loosely proved by experiments by milgram and bandura. Check them out
cheers

Dinesh Babuji said...

Queer, US is better than UK in terms of racism is what I have heard. And north UK is extreme compared to south i.e London etc.

Cheesy,I agree I am over optimistic in thinking that we will look down upon them but I do hope. And London is safer than north UK. Be safe.

Keshi,
I reckon Australia is much better and so be it.

Ubermensch, a detailed mail coming your way. :)

Keshi said...

I guess its not the countries thats the prob..it's just some ppl and the situations u meet up with...tc Dinesh and stand up for urselves!

Keshi.

Dinesh Babuji said...

Bangaloreguy: I had just gone to play football so kep the mobile at home. Now I carry it daily with emergency number stored at the very top. :)

Keshi: I do stand up for myself :). Yes, some people mar the whole race does get a bad name. I was naive in doing that but impulse made me do it. :)

Anonymous said...

What goes around comes around. Don't bother people as dim-witted as that. I laugh (often with my tongue in my cheek and in such people's faces). It helps. Condescension has its rewards.

Anonymous said...

Am sure you will watch this and smile:

http://www.diverse.tv/programme.aspx?id=94

Dinesh Babuji said...

@Vijay: Thanks.