SAY MY NAME

             Children, draw circles on paper etch eyes, nose and ears around it greater the likeness to face, greater the joy. When I used to sketch something similar, I couldn't put the pencil down thinking, if the face indeed was mine after some deliberation, I would draw a smaller circle over the larger circle of the face and mutter to myself, now this...This is me. I never stopped wondering, though, why I never had a loose hairdo or others had a bun it used to be an act of courage sharing that sketch with people who, in every class break, would point to it asking if it were an apple, an orange or an onion or a potato it felt like an act of courage it's not daggers or pistols that are scary, sometimes. Just words, shapeless, formless words but pointed words that stab and scrape and peel I remember, people at school, college, wherever addressing me, not by name but with an innocuous smile that accompanied "Paaji", "Paape", or "Gyaani" I used to smile back never knowing how to express what I felt sometimes, an unbearable embarrassment and some other times, an intense, scorching rage for so many years, and I guess to the present day I have been trying to wrap my head around why has my hair started to means more than my name why has the way I look  become so integral to who I am I often used to think, why I never used"O, Pandit", or "O, Khan Sahab" as salutations. I tried, in fact, and it felt inappropriate. When I could feel this way, why not them who wouldn't call me by my name perhaps, my father or grandfather never cared enough. But I do. Baba used to say Sardar means a leader, the head of a communitybut I have seen derision far too many times to not be able to identify that "sardar" baba meant and "sardarji" that people mean are as similar as chalk and cheese. Sometimes, I laugh and say to myself that Pakistan was far and elusive I found hostilities in my own classmates or that bus conductor who, with his harmless wit wrapped around "Paaji" singularly felled me every time I tried to get up while my bones never broke my confidence splintered every single time and this spectacle continues like clockwork until I myself start believing that I am not "them" Mukesh is Mukesh, Sameer, Sameer and I have Transmogrified into "Paaji".

Those 12'o clock jokes well, sometimes even I used to laugh sitting by the clock sometimes waiting for something to happen to me, really. People don't get to choose what color, who they are born as those that think they can see everything are the ones who are blind today, I may feel that I have risen above this "quibble" but not to be addressed by my name still feels suffocating it feels as if my rightful share of oxygen has been cut off it's a collective failure of sorts. But it starts with myself. Instead of shying away from the faces I drew, I should have proudly proclaimed "This is me" embracing my identity who I am, what I am. Fighting our shame, is often the biggest war we wage and winning it, is our biggest triumph.