Shadow Lines

If you're desi, have you ever noticed that other desis have no qualms about randomly starting up conversations with you even if you are strangers? And I'm not talking about meeting some stranger at a desi party. I'm talking about random strangers at the grocery store, in the elevator, on the street, in the subway...you get the drift.

On my way to work this morning an Indian girl chatted me up in the lift, I am compelled to say "lift" here and not "elevator". She said "You SO look like an auntie of mine!" I sometimes wonder at this comfort level we feel with desis, how it's so natural for them to think oh she knows what an auntie or a lift is. How they are innocently sure that their candidness will be returned. Anyway, so we kept talking, exchanged cards and our live's stories, and I think might have become friends--all in the course of one short subway ride.

I don't think I would ever be able to do that. I am much more comfortable with pronouncing polite laughs and agreeing about disagreeable weather; this to me constitutes elevator-talk. But when it's a desi coming up to me, for some reason, I can't help but reciprocate! All the misgivings that should apply, suddenly don't. Why is that?

Even if they will sometimes ask the nosiest questions which would under different circumstances perhaps be thought outrageous:

What's your name?
How much do you pay for rent?
Where are you from?
What do your parents do?
WHY are you studying English? You should study Finance!

And not only are we not shocked at this astonishing pokiness, for some reason we don't really seem to mind. Atleast I don't mind per se, I kind of expect it. And all these "lines" that separate us as hindus, muslims, indians, bangladeshis, pakistanis since partition and liberation don't seem to matter as much. Somehow being expats blurs those lines. If you're brown, you're accessible.

I am a proud Bangladeshi Canadian. And despite spending many years vehemently resisting the label, because not only did "desI" disagree with Bangla pronounciation, I felt it robbed me of my Bangaliness, I am now comfortable with identifying myself as a "desi". In fact I think I would go so far as to say that I like how it generalizes south asians instead of setting us up through racial or religious lines.

Hm.