All u ppl..

I went to school in the Midwest, in a small for now unnamed town in Ohio. I told Betty - nice lady in my cafeteria dorm ONCE, in a daze, or maybe I was sleepy, that I was from India. My dorm was nicknamed "the Virgin dorm", more on that some time later, but suffice to say that it was a dorm where not many people know that India, is not the size of Ohio and chances are the people who live on the other side of town, from me are not long lost acquaintances, from back home. So the reason why we stumbled into this particular intercourse, was becoz I mentioned to Betty- my lunch lady/ the one who stares at me so much I  think I'm wearing my clothes inside out- that I dont eat pork and that if she could let me know the complicated strognoff dish being lumped on to the bowls was vegetarian? That simple question turned into this whole thing, bout people she knows who are from that part of India she couldn't pronounce, but she will find out about it and let me know, and maybe they know me too, as all Indians do, in her mind anyway- and all I wanted at that time really was to eat my meal in peace, before my "Environmental Sustainability" lecture- with that professor who mumbled when he talked, and try as I might I couldnt stay awake in his class so I hid in the back with my hoodie upto my eyes to disguise my sleepy strained eyes at  wat felt like the witching hour, back to-with watever lump they were dumping in the bowls; as long as as no pigs died in the process of making it; without all these girls cursing at me, 'coz I was holding up the checkout line. "Get moving Bee-yatch, some of us have a class to go to after", someone in the back yelled. I wanted to MELT in that (I later found out beef and pork) sauce and drown into oblivion. "I dont eat pork", I said handing her my meal ticket, and tried to scurry away, but Betty was relentless, "honey, I will let them know about you, maybe they know u n stuff", I WANTED TO RUN into oblivion, yeah right! I was one of the only 2 brown girls, in that entire dorm. I started running and then realized, that I had left my packet of potato chips dinner back there in my "RUN of Shame". Yeah, that was long night..

Years later, on my semi first Job, My cubemate asked me "Do You People always do this?" He was a nice somewat crazy, make that borderline loony brownY like me from Southeast Asia,  but a different country. Why i felt the need to communicate or talk with someone who was more like me talking to myself, except that I had been drugged on mind-freaking-altering-causing-hallucinations drug, is unfathomable, may be coz I was diagnosed with a Vitamin D deficiency later on? I donno man, but ren't all of us alike anyway, all of us ppl, from that part of the world, where camels are the main mode of transportation. Same third world, that is the breeding place for malaria, sheesh.. "US People", "you mean women?", I asked, As I was trying to see wat other categories I would fit into, "Brown", "Glasses", "Stupid", "Dork", - "Indian", is wat he was probably referring to now that I know what I know, Again; I wanted to RUN to the other side of my 2 by 2 cube, and hide behind the file cabinet to avoid listening and then answering to watever was gonna come next. That filing cabinet could probably hide my face and the rest of me would just pretend we're not there for the rest of this conversation I thought, but that being a lucky day "Yay", I was "saved by the ringing of my antique phone bell" and that slowly turning awkward conversation.

So although I would love to pretend Im just like all of my fellow Indians in EVERY possible manner, I'm Not, and Im not a very good representative either. Really, Satya Nadella, thats a good representative, or Priyanka Chopra, or I donno all the other successful ones, I'm proud of who I am and my heritage, but people there a LOT of US People, and were all very different from each other. I want to believe I have greatness in me like Gandhi, charm like Nehru, and good looks like Madhubala, but really Im just a regular looking pudge, trying to make it in this somewat monochromatic world.