The New Indian Kid

“Do you eat curry every day?”, “What is the button on an Indian woman’s head?”, “Do you play cricket?” and my favorite “Can you fix my computer?”. These, are just a few examples of the “friendly” and “banterful” jabs, I received at my first International school. Now you must be thinking; well your friends must have been racist or uneducated, but unfortunately they were none of the above, begging the question - what were they then? Well, let me tell you.

My chronicle, if you will, began on my first day of school in the British School of Bahrain. Just like the other new students, I was asked to line up at the front of the class and introduce myself. So, as Mrs. Payne (aka The Executioner) gives us the fatal stare to hurry up and bring our necks down to the pen, awkward silence fills the room. This silence is then followed by the new students looking at each other, pleading with every inch of our retinas, for some brave soul to start the proceedings. As you just predicted, brave souls like that don’t exist in reality. Noticing this, Mrs. Payne decides to take the lead -

“Prabhav Arora, why don’t you start us off? Your name is first on the roll anyway.”

Like a bullet, the reality hits me as I picture Mrs. Payne standing there, tipping her hat whilst blowing the smoke off her gun, creating a still even John Wayne would be envious of. Immediately, I start cursing every ancestor I know for inheriting the name Arora. Why couldn’t I be called Prabhav Zorro or something like that? Whilst going through a few curses I begin to speak;

“H-hhh-elllo, Mmm-mm-yy name i-ii-s Prabhav”.

Now, you must be thinking that I am one shy kid. Incorrect. I am in fact a kid which has just spent the first 9 years of his life studying in a Hindi medium school, having one class of English every week.

“I  li-ii-i-ke to pla-a-y foo-tb-all and m-aa-ke go-al-s. I c-aa-me India 2 we-ee-k-s ba-cck.

That’s right, I was just fresh of the boat and my parents had the stupendous idea of putting me in an International School. You must be thinking this was bad enough. Nope, the final movement is incoming.

“I a-aam e-lle-w-u-nn y-yy-ear-ss ol-dd”.

With that fantastic pronunciation of eleven I successfully managed to pull out the “stereo typical” Indian accent and fill the room with laughing gas. Now don’t get me wrong, I am probably one of the most patriotic Indians ever and am tremendously proud of my accent and identity, however sadly for me my classmates appeared to not share the same opinion. Fortunately, Mrs. Payne came to my rescue by yelling at class for silence and asking for respect. I then proceeded to bend my head to the floor feeling sorry for my “English”, hoping for the next in line and my countryman Arjun Arunat to take some of the heat. Just as I was beginning to get my hopes up, this chap decides to go on and blow the whole class away.

“Good morning class, my name is Arjun Arunat and I am eleven years old.”, giving me a cheeky smile after saying eleven he proceeds,  “I really enjoy playing football and basketball, in addition to playing the guitar.  I hope to make some new friends and enjoy life. I support Chelsea in football and the Warriors in Basketball. I’m originally from India but I’ve lived in England my whole life. ”

With that outburst of flawless English, even the Queen would be proud of, the class was taken aback. They tried to matching the face with the voice, scratching their heads on how an “Indian” could speak such English. Usually, I would be proud that a fellow countryman was restoring the pride of the nation; however Mr.Arunat just managed to outshine me like a Ford Fiesta racing a Ferrari.

Soon, the introductions were done and Mrs.Payne asked for us to return to our seats. As I was taking my seat, I heard a snicker;

“Hey Prabhav do you play Wolleyball”?.

Much to my surprise, Ben Harris had decided to break the ice in a kind manner, complementing Indians on their pronunciation of the letter v. The first of many I thought to myself. Subsequently, my friend Arjun, decides to take a seat next to Ben, yet he receives a fist pump and a pretty self explanatory invitation to the “cool kids” group.

Jokes aside, this event caused me to ponder on how judgmental society is, with my peers looking down on me because of the fact I couldn’t speak “proper” English. They hadn’t judged my personality, talked to me or even said Hi, but they had drawn immediate conclusions. I couldn’t even bring up the racist factor because my friend Ranbir had been accepted with open arms, or should I say fists?