So which color are you?

When this stint of mine in Germany gets over, I would have spent close to three years in Europe. Three years is a long time - to get used to a place, to come to terms with the idiosyncrasies and the inherent biasses people have and to learn to live with it. I have lived a life of a stranger here in Europe with no knowledge of the language and customs. I have never complained about the suspicious stares and the cold shoulders because I realized quite early that if I want to be accepted, it is my duty to learn the language and understand their customs, take that extra step so that I could ask for favors and get my work done rather than expect them to travel the extra mile.

But there's this thin line of difference between suspicion or self defence and outright prejudice. I would understand why a old woman pretends to be deaf when I ask her for the way to a hotel, while she's talking a stride with her puny puppy. But when a driver in a bus does it to me, when I give him the money for a ticket and makes me stand next to him for five whole minutes, while at the sametime men who speak his tongue who board the bus two, three stops hence get their tickets and seat themselves completely, I am sorry but I don't get it! Through my entire journey from my guest house to my company HQ, I was standing right next to him politely requesting him for my ticket over and over again and he acted as if I was invisible, as if I didn't exist. And when he finally did, he gave me a smirk (and No! I did not imagine it!) as if he's proved a point.

~@~

Two gentlemen, one German and the other Indian, who have landed in Frankfurt by the same flight have been asked to share a taxi on their way back home. They assent and wait under the summer morning sun while a taxi makes its way next to the platform. A plump taxi driver gets out wishes them good morning, picks the heavy suitcase of the German colleague and places it carefully in the boot of the car. He then looks at the Indian colleague who has an equally huge suitcase, walks back to his seat to start the taxi. Is he being paid any lesser by the Indian colleague? It's the same flight and the same destination - and why would someone do this?

I will not generalize and call this a cultural trait. As much as I would want to, I am not going to make historic references and blame a whole country or a continent because two fools have so far have reacted this way. Because I know when I do that I am making the same racist, foolish mistake that has been irritating me since morning, that I believe belongs to a race far less human than the one I belong to. But one day, when I get to speak this language, I would want to stop and ask these taxi drivers and bus drivers about that mysterious pill they take before lunch or after dinner that blesses them with such an unbelievably irritating and nasty attitude.