The Global look

- Vidhya Krishnan

I would like to share some hilarious incidents that happened in my life based on the physical look.

Five years ago in Leeds (UK), I was walking in the street in winter. It was quite cold and had a black scarf around my head covering the neck just like Muslims wear. There was a guy walking behind me. I felt he was following me and came quite closer to me. Now I could hear him saying something. It became clearer as he came closer. He said, “Salaam Malekum” (Muslims greet each other saying this). He kept saying this again and again and expected me to answer him. I was all alone in the street and felt it is better to keep quite. He started talking in a language that I couldn’t understand. I walked faster. He never gave up. He kept talking and was behind me. OOPs! I thought what should I do now?

Suddenly, he overtook me and stood right in front of me. I looked at his eyes. He looked harmless. Immediately he realized he has some misunderstanding. He said, “Sorry, I thought you are an Arabian. That is why I spoke to you in Arabic. I am really sorry for bothering you”. I smiled at him and said, “ It is ok.” The incident really made me laugh whenever I think about it.

The other day in Leeds, I was waiting for the bus and there was a small group of Indians in the bus stop. They were having fun talking in Tamil. They thought I don’t understand Tamil and cracked jokes. I smiled and asked them, “where are you from?”. All of them looked at me with their jaws dropped. I asked them why do they looked surprised. One of them asked me, “who taught you Tamil?”. I thought, “Oops! Who taught me Tamil?” I asked him why. They said, “We taught you are a north Indian and someone taught you few sentences in Tamil.” I smiled at them and said it is my mother tongue. They felt a bit embarrassed.

There are many times when people have asked if I am from Bengal or Singapore. I really felt global. How freeing is it to belong or relate to many places? It is pretty interesting to observe that it is the general tendency of people to try to find someone’s origin of whomever they meet.

I have noticed that first ever time when I went out of my home town or state, people with lot of enthusiasm asking, “Oh! You from the same town / state as I am”. When I went to the north of India, I heard people saying, “Oh! You from the south? Me too.” When I went to UK, I saw people getting excited and saying, “Oh! You from India?” and all Indians clung together. I just extended the scenario and thought, “What if we go to mars?”. People would say, “Oh! You from the planet Earth?” J

How we try to cling to things or people that we are familiar with? Can I come out of the cocoon and see the bigger picture? Can I come out of the label and free others from this label as well? Can I feel that I belong to everyone, the whole world. Not just to a small town or a state or a country. Rather the whole universe is mine. Of course, embassies would not be pleased to hear this. This vision can bring peace all over the world although not an entry without a visa.