From shadows to the stars

#3 After finishing my MA course at University of Hyderabad, I have now moved to Mumbai. My previous experiences of people saying, "You don't look like a South Indian" have continued here. In the first couple of days of my new job, a girl asked me if I was Pubjabi. My name is Amrit, so not a giant leap of imagination. I proceeded to say that I wasn't. She then asked me where I was from and I replied that I was from Telangana. "But you don't look like you're from South," she said. What's worse, she didn't know what is spoken Telangana. "Tamil?" she asked. When people who don't even know what language is spoken in Telangana tell me that I don't look like I am from Telangana, on what basis are they making this statement? My guess is Bollywood stereotypes. #4 My roommates and I were just getting to know each other. After I had mentioned to them that I was from Hyderabad, they wanted to know if I spoke Hyderabadi Hindi. T...

People sometimes say the funniest things. When they say these things, they betray some stereotypes, preconceived notions, prejudices and bigotry they have. Hopefully, this will be a recurring segment of the blog, like the Random Observations. But for now, let's assume that it's a one-off. #1 Last summer, I was in Vijayawada for a couple of days. I had a laptop with me and stopped at a tea stall. A stranger approached me and asked, quite disarmingly, if I was a software engineer. Perhaps, the laptop suggested this to him. I replied in the negative. Then, he looked at me and asked, "Are you a Muslim?" Perhaps, the beard suggested this to him. I again replied in the negative. (Although in hindsight, I should've just asked him to mind his own business.) Thankfully, the man was done guessing. This time, he just asked me, "What do you do?" I told him that I was a student working on getting my post-graduate degree in Communication. To this, the man ...