No Man's Land.......

Multiculturalism : That's the part about London that I loved the most on my first visit to London apart from the public transportation system, which really impressed me.....

The first time, I was in London and on my first day to office, I went in a bus driven by a black woman driver. Worked in a office full of Brit's, and had lunch at a Bangladesh restaurant. Before moving ahead, let me clear why I have marked the Black and WOMAN part in bold and colours. I am NO racist prick nor a sexist. I was mighty impressed with the fact that the gender and the colour of your skin hardly mattered round here!!!

Now, on my third visit to London, I live in a house owned by a Pakistani, have dinner at a Tamil restaurant run by Srilankan’s, lunch at a Bangladeshi one and get my groceries from a Gujju store nearby......unfortunately, there are no Nepali gurkha's in Stratford !!!!

But scratch the surface a little and you find that there are problems here too, like elsewhere…..... The London police still haven’t brought forward any evidence for the recent arrests made in the wake of the 'plane bombing conspiracy' and the Muslim community here is accusing the Blair government of a witch hunting.

So then, what happens to the multicultural face of London? Well just yesterday, a man with a beard and a rucksack boarded my bus. He got down a couple of stops before mine and I bent down my seat and looked on the floor to make sure that he didn't leave anything behind. There was nothing below the seat. But 'had I stooped low and am I less secular now', I questioned myself...... But I think I did just fine and would pass the secularism quiz any day..... I happen to have an instinct for self preservation and did my duty as a concerned citizen... But the terrorists had won a small mind game. They were successful in their endeavours to create a 'us vs them' mindset and a trust deficit.

And I am sure that's the situation back home too...... When you read about software Engineers and journalists from the minority community being named as suspects, It brings us one step closer to the 'us vs them' mentality. Its actually a vicious cycle, this lack of trust creates a sense of isolation. And perhaps this sense of isolations helps in the creation of another terrorist over a period of time.

It's complicated!!! Why does it have to be this way, I have wondered many a times.

I have an interesting incident to narrate in this context. During my second trip to London, I had to take a cab to office for three days and on the second day, I met the same cabbie, whom I had seen on the first day. Only this time, he strikes up a conversation, which went something like this.

Him: So what are you doing here?
Me: I am a software engineer. I am here for training.
Him: A lot of software Engineers around..... Are you from Bangalore?
Me: Yeah, actually a place close to Bangalore called Mysore.
Me: Where are you from?
Him: Pakistan...
Him: Kashmir actually....
Him : Well, no man's land actually... (wry smile)