When bigotry seeps into seemingly friendly encounter

IN the suburb of Delhi we live in, it is often a novelty to make a trip to one of the few supermarkets in the area. One weekend morning, I was pushing a large trolley in the wide aisles of the supermarket, accompanied with my youngest daughter. I unashamedly rely on her working memory when we are together, asking her to remember all we have to do and help me stay on the path. Between us, I am the person who will get distracted by shiny objects and silly deals and she is the one who stays focussed.

Advertisement

It was a day before Holi and we had last-minute shopping to do. Every year, my parents, brother and his family come over to our home and the cousins run amok with my sister-in-law leading them in playing wet and rowdy Holi. I often go to the first-floor balcony early to take photos of them on the lawn below and stay safe from their excited play with water and colours.

I was wearing a big clip with a yellow cloth flower in my hair. I do these things. My daughter and I had arrived in a playful mood, armed with a shopping list and the kind of secret plans one dare not admit to oneself as we enter a supermarket. Somehow our eyes and feet just take us towards certain aisles. Our trolley begins to fill up with things.

There was a woman from our neighbourhood looking at the display of Holi colours, plastic pichkaris and other toys. We smiled at her, she smiled back. She is a professor in a university in our area.

“Holi shopping?” I said to her.

“Yes,” she said.

“Good to know that there are other last-minute-people like us,” I joked and looked at my daughter.

I mostly make polite conversation to be a good role model for my children. Left to myself, my instinct is to change my direction from a distance to avoid casual chitchat when I spot people I may know. “Do not be afraid of people. They are quite harmless. Smile and say simple things.” This is broadly the subliminal message I hope my children are picking up from my seemingly relaxed social behaviour.

In the supermarket, the woman from my neighbourhood complimented me. “You always wear something nice,” she said, touching the top of her own head lightly. “Thank you,” I said, remembering that I had forgotten to take off my childish hair clip.

“You are a very different family,” she said. “You are Muslims, right?”

“Well,” I said, “we are a mixed family. My husband is a Muslim and I am a Hindu.”

“Oh, you are from…?” she continued, choosing this moment to piece the details of my personal history.

“I studied in Delhi,” I said.

“And your husband?”

“He is from Jaunpur,” I said. This is not an accurate answer. I don’t know why I said this.

“He must be liberal,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, somewhat confused. “I am a liberal too.” I held my child’s hand and began to look for whatever it was that we had totally forgotten we were looking for. I stared inside the freezer, noticing new products and brands I was unfamiliar with. I imagined a vivid thought bubble around the professor’s head, illustrating her thoughts. “A mixed marriage? An educated Hindu Delhi girl marrying a Muslim? Hmm, he must be liberal, and maybe he is not as bad as other Muslim men are.”

I asked our new friend about her work at the university where she teaches chemistry. She said that a lot of young Muslim women from Jamia Nagar had enrolled in science courses in her college lately.

“That’s nice, that’s interesting,” I said. Polite conversation made topical by talking about Muslims when one meets Muslims, I thought to myself.

“But, you know, these girls are very chaalu. They all have cellphones and boyfriends, even as they come to college in their hijab.” She paused and added, “Many boyfriends.”

My daughter let go of my hand and walked away to examine the shelf of Korean noodles. My chance encounter with an acquaintance in a supermarket was getting complicated.

“The girls get time off to say their prayers, there is a special room for them. They are very organised in the way they made a representation to the VC about their prayer room and prayer time.”

“That’s nice, that’s interesting,” I said again, running out of better words.

“But they are over-smart and rude. They are the last to put away their mobile phones in the examination room,” I was informed.

I refused to take the bait to either defend or explain about young Muslims. The sound of her assumptions and condescension accidentally falling and crashing near her own feet punctuated the silence. “These Muslims are getting themselves an education but not deferential enough in return for the favour being bestowed upon them,” she seemed to be suggesting.

What had started as a seemingly friendly encounter left me with a sick and nagging feeling. Was she genuinely confused? Was this just hate masked as curiosity? When I have a story I need to unravel and understand, I write it here.

The writer is a filmmaker, author and teacher