2. My Daily Chai

Roaming about Nescafe, sipping on my daily chai in peaceful solitude, a disturbingly passionate conversation finds my ears: “Would Pakistan ever root for India? No. All they do is breed Afzal to terrorize our nation. I don’t understand these anti-nationalists. Does cricket mean nothing to them?”

I held back my furor, and quietly walked away before my chained debater started howling at them. ‘It’s how they were raised’ I tell myself. It’s real to them. This is the righteous, earnest way of life to them. This is their reality. They live in a nation bound by one language. On the other hand, I don’t. I take an auto to the studio that awaits me and try to focus at my task at hand. I plan, “backlight to highlight her edges, oh and I can use my scarf, maybe I’ll play around with shutter speed”, my mind wanders. Is it really the only thing I can do, walk away? Would my speech have made a difference?

Later I channel my fear and frustration into words thrown at my boyfriend. Calm and composed, he listens and replies, “It doesn’t matter, calm down, the food we eat is going to kill us much before politics will. Everything is propaganda, a revolution means nothing anymore. Soon, we will all belong to an age gone by.” I instantly know he’s talking about our entire race. All the public outrage meant nothing to him. He sat at home, afraid to step out because he might catch an allergy again.

Vidisha

II Year