The International Writers Magazine- Dreamscapes: School is where you learn to hate - yourself.
Note: This is a work of fiction

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The Story of a Girl • Rita Sidhu on growing up All it took was two words for this eight-year old to commence a long-standing hatred of everything she was.

This is the story of a young girl. A girl whose mother affectionately called her, "my little bird." This girl was born and raised in a small town in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia in the heart of the bible-belt. Growing up in an isolated farming community, this girl did not have many friends. Her family could not afford a television as they were poor immigrants from India. Nor did she have any fancy toys or nice clothes like so many of the other little girls.

This girl went to a rural elementary school where she was the only student with brown skin – the colour of mud one girl had said. While other girls were having birthday parties and sleepovers, this girl was embarrassed of her ramshackle house and heavily-accented parents. She feared being shunned for her life at home which she knew was different from the others. It had happened before when she had been invited to join Sunday school but her parents said no. She didn’t understand why she had to be different. So she did her best not to bring her home life to school with her.

One day, this girl’s carefully-constructed deck of cards came tumbling down. She was eight-years old and had become accustomed to being left alone. That’s why she was surprised to see the boy coming towards her with two of his friends on the playground during recess. She was terrified. It was like they were walking in slow motion and time had stretched. It was as though her feet had turned into cement and all she could do was wait for what would surely be disaster. What seemed like an hour was likely not more than a few seconds.
"Hey Paki," he said casually as he brushed past her, giving her a slight push. Two words in a matter of seconds. All it took was two words for this eight-year old to commence a long-standing hatred of everything she was.

She did not really know what a Paki was. She had never left her hometown and at eight, had little knowledge of the world beyond her doorstep. Her parents affectionately spoke about the life they had enjoyed "back home" but it was mostly vague remembrances and stories about things that the girl knew little about. Yet she instinctively knew that it was bad to be called a Paki – a stain of dishonour. Thus, her eight-year old mind told her she must be a bad person.
The little girl walked by her classmates who played happily; oblivious. She locked herself into the bathroom and sobbed silent tears. She kept the secret from her mother. She did not want her parents to know that she was a bad person. From that day forward, the "little bird" made no use of her wings.

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Years later, the girl had blossomed into a young woman in her mid-twenties. It had taken a very long time, but she had grown to accept who she was. The turning point in her life was when she had left the small town to attend University and had discovered a whole new world. She flourished. The little girl had grown into a world of ideas. She planned a trip to India and fell in love with it. Not only was she completely accepted for the first time in her life, she felt her very existence had been legitimized in a way she never knew growing up. She returned to Canada with a love of who she was and a pride in her culture she would never again let go of. She began to claim her space.

The young woman decided to pursue a Political Science Masters degree in Alberta. She was sitting on a bus in the provincial capital of Edmonton. In front of her sat an elderly woman, her white hair in rollers under her garish scarf. The bus rolled to a stop and a large black man boarded. He scanned the bus quickly and fixed his eyes on the nearest vacant seat – the one next to the old woman. He sat down very carefully. The old woman frowned at him and wrinkled her nose in undisguised annoyance. At the next stop, she switched seats. "It’s because he’s large," the young woman lied to herself.

It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the States. The young woman came home and watched the news of war and anti-terrorist measures. She commented to her Albertan roommate on the fear she had of the racial implications of such powers. Her roommate was insouciant. She felt that racism would be eliminated or virtually non-existent by the time she had children.

The young woman looked at her roommate and recalled the last time she had felt that racism was not a serious problem in Canada. She had been a couple years younger. Her hopes had been dashed the day she read in the paper of the beating death of a Sikh caretaker at a local gurdwara – a place of God – by five neo-Nazi skinheads. She swore never again to allow complacency to creep in.

The woman realized her roommate would always experience the world differently than her. She had a different vision based on her life experience that coloured the world in a rosy hue. The black man on the bus would always experience the world differently than the elderly woman. We all wear different glasses.

The following day, while once again taking the bus on her regular route, the young woman was gazing out the window, lost in her own thoughts. Someone sat down next to her. She looked up and saw the black man. He looked at her warily with a mixture of defiance and fear in his eyes. Her mouth slowly widened into a brilliant smile, and he let out the breath he had unconsciously been holding.

© Rita Sidhu Feb 2004
Edmonton, Alberta
ritasidhu@hotmail.com

I Love India
Rita Sidhu

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