17 September 2013, 09:46 AM IST
"Some people are so stupid," said Selina's post on Facebook, the day nitwits on Twitter went haywire with their racist comments on the new Miss America, Nina Davuluri. Their outrage at Nina winning the title is because they see her as an outsider, an alien, an Indian, an "Arab," even terrorist (LOL)– how dare she win the Miss America title?
Funnily, we still like to see ourselves as coming from here or there, in terms of geographical or racial roots even as identity-tectonics have been shifting the contours of one's identity that is no longer circumscribed by this or that -- any more than you can define the shape of a piece of putty. You cannot even describe someone as a medical doctor because you discover that having studied Law as well, he doubles as legal consultant. And this is just one tiny example. I know an engineer who works in an office at day and in the evenings, happily dishes out idlis from a mobile stand near his home. I now hear he is a fulltime idli-man.
And what about that rainbow family, where the parents are practising Sikhs, one daughter is a Bahai and the other, Christian? You don't have to call yourself Ram Rahim Singh or Swami Beyondananda or even Yogi Protoplasm to drive home the point that you embrace multiple faiths – it shows in the way you live your life; it is evident in what you say and do. Well, I guess the names attract attention to the fact and no more – and are a good talking point.
To those surviving and exulting in a globalised world that has flung open its doors of opportunity to people across regions and communities, vocations and faiths, racist comments are at most jarring but certainly not to be taken seriously. As Nina Daluri herself said, brushing aside racist comments: "I have to rise above that… I always viewed myself as first and foremost American."
My 19 year-old grand-niece, Selina, lives in the USA. She is American by birth and circumstance; she is also Pakistani (US-born mother of Pakistan-born parents) and Tam-Brahm Indian (father born of Tam-Brahm parents, Chennai) by genealogy and completely global – perhaps even universal – in outlook. A great fan of Bollywood and a good singer and Bharatanatyam dancer herself, she could win an American or even Indian Idol show hands down if only she would participate. And she's been a whiz kid in school.
What occupies Selina's mind space right now is none of the above – for she has just enrolled in college. Books, accommodation, laundry, new friends, homesickness – this is her world this moment, just as it would be for anyone at all going through the same phase in life, whether Arab, Indian or American.
By the way, who is a true blue American? The USA has been called variously the melting pot, the salad bowl, rainbow country and what not, as every one of its inhabitants (except perhaps Indigenous Americans) are immigrants, stirring a bit of their own faith and culture into the pot or bowl or adding another shade to the rainbow. In any case, we humans on earth could well be immigrants from another planet or star, according to panspermia theorists like Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickremasinghe who say comets and meteorites might have deposited the germs of life on earth when they fell from the skies. That makes us all aliens.
Let racist commentators lie, and we get on with the business of life and living. And congratulations Nina, not just for winning the Miss America title but for effortlessly brushing aside rabble-rousers and racists.
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