Two wheels & a free spirit

My furnace-like home threatened to roast me like a stuffed turkey on one fine hot Jersey day. I picked up Jay's steely Schwinn in one spontaneous thrust & climbed down the block to rouse my lethargic spirit. Setting my Woodland feet to pedals, I rode out under the stark sunlight racing to the shadows of Johnson Park. Down the Cedar slope, towards the River Road signal, I let the wind caress my shamefully short hair as I closed my eyes to get that fleeting I-am-the-King-of-the-World feeling...

We are at the friendly neighborhood rental bike shop at Kastur Park. Papa chooses a medium size blue bike for me. I run my hand over the dotted handle & ring the shiny bell in delight. My brother sniggers at my impatience as he pets his new brown Atlas Fireshadow. We set off the road to the open ground near Ganpati mandir. It is one of my bicycle lessons. One foot on the pedal, one heave at the handle and I launch myself into the weed ridden, occasional dog-poo infested field uttering a cry of victory; only to notice my dad holding on tight, to the back of my seat. I assure him of my confidence and he lets go. I pedal in circles & eights with my brother crisscrossing my bold advances. Proud of my achievement, I beg Papa to let me ride the new larger-than-my-perky-self Atlas. Smiling at my cluck-clucking brother, Dad gives in. I hastily clamber upon the shiny Fireshadow to check my limb-to-pedal reach. I start wheeling voraciously with Papa running along, his one hand on shirt pocket to save the chillars from popping out. A yard, and a ten; I get myself freed from the clutches of my concerned father, riding into thin air. The sheer joy of speeding under a cotton-laden blue sky & on a wide open land in otherwise cluttered Mumbai breathes life into my pounding heart. I glance behind to see a diminishing figure & try to maneuver a turn to ride into the arms of a proud father. Abrupt decision, shaky hands and fickle gravel shred my calculations and I tilt over to one side hitting the ground with a resounding clunk. As I lie rubbing my wound, I see him, sprinting towards me, coins spilling over....

When US beckoned me by Siddharth Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The mind that colors the cradle...

Racism is tricky business. There is a whole gray area between comments that are racist and ones which aren't, and it can be quite a task to separate the husk from the grains. At one time, you may withhold a statement as a truism, only to be later assailed by some thought or incident which negates your basic premise.

For instance, there was a time when I used to take offense at someone calling an Indian brown, or an Asian yellow, or an Afro-American black. The basic premise lay in the fact that one considered white as the supreme color, the color of nobility & a color used by dictators & colonialists alike to proclaim their dominance over others. But on deeper contemplation, I realized that we Indians sure have our own nomenclature for the different races; Desi, makku, kallu, chinki ruling the roost. Are we being racist as well then? Or is it just a matter of convenience to refer to a certain group to delineate an image of such a person while narrating an incident? To think of it, refering to someone by their continental origin, say Asian or Indian, does not conjure the right image in terms of looks as well as could be an affront for fellow men from less-population-percent countries. Calling an Indian a Pakistani; or a Korean Chinese might be bigger of an insult than calling them brown or yellow.

Social norms change, so do the languages; but what truly distinguishes a racist from the not-racist is probably the tone of the comment, its literal meaning or pure actions perpetuated in its name. So you may call me brown or you may call me black, but you will find a punch flying at your face if you add a 'fag' or 'fat' to that...


When US beckoned me by Siddharth Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.