Mirror, mirror

Well, this happened some time back when I was going to a friend's birthday party in Priya's. Now I just happened to be waiting in Satya Niketan for a conscientious autowallah who would agree to take me there by meter (major optimism involved here, mind you) when suddenly this bike whooshes by on which one of these two "superstuds" aboard yells "Hatt Chinky!" at me. And before I can even look around to spot the perpetrator, they are gone. Physically, at least. Though the effect of their words linger on for a few humiliating moments. I mean, this is a full marketplace we are talking about here. So the thing which was going through my mind was, "what to do now?" I felt bitter of course. Responses varying from running after the bike and hurling back similar complimentaries to the bastard to filing an FIR rushed through my mind in that frenzy of mad fury before rationality finally set in. They were gone. Actually gone. And there was nothing I could do about it now. No matter what I did, that moment wouldnt come back. Almost in a dramatic moment, a similar-looking youth stopped by and asked me for directions to the South Campus. Red-faced as I was, I still managed to blurt out a polite and helpful enough reply after which the guy smiled gratefully and said "thanks man" to me before leaving. Now a sweet gesture of course, but the mood that I was in made me zero in on the emphasis on the "man" term. Why is it that people have to presume that to talk level with a northeastern youth, you have to mandatorily use terms like "yo", "man", "brother", "dude"? Why do we have this huuge tendency to generalize and stereotype people according to their looks, place of origin, religion, etc etc? One bollywood star gets abused for the oily Indian chicken dish she has prepared on a British reality show and the whole world cries foul. Not that I'm justifying it, but then why does this internal level discrimination have to go unnoticed? How about looking at a magic mirror which shows you that for all your cultural diversity, you arent really the fairest of them after all? People scream of racism in london and new york, but at an instance like this, I practically get the feeling that I might just be facing more racism in New Delhi than New York. After all, I am sure that in new york, the cab driver won't quote me a fare thirty bucks higher just because I "look" like a "foreigner". But try negotiating with some of the autodrivers here to lower the 30 rupees surcharge they are offering and see the look you get. Ditto for stalls, stores, Sarojini nagar clothes shops, etc etc. Now dont get me wrong, I am not commiting the same mistake of bland generalization here. There's a vast majority out there which is indeed sufficient enough to balance out these few thankfully minor sections of illiterate vulgar assholes. I have seen loads of people and attitudes out here which have been exemplums of human nature. There was a time when I had accidentally dropped my bag during a bus trip after which I had got a call from a scooterist who had picked it up on the way. He had actually gone through the trouble of fishing out my number from my college register to call me up. This is the kind of thing for which I will always remember Delhi. But now the issue is that even if the offenders fall in the minority, does it justify the rest of us who turn a blind eye to such things? After all, not every Britisher is a Jade Goody, but after that incident, we saw constant media feedbacks of how the entire nation was reacting in opposition to the event to show they were different from the impression the rest of the world was getting. Why can't we do something like that? Why is "forgive and forget" the usual stance we are suggested to take? Why isnt there something which can be worked out?