Who am I?

Last week on my day off from work, I landed up at a friend’s place to let my hair down at the end of a really hectic week.<br/><br/>It is here that I met this pretty, young lady, a Hotel Management Trainee at The Taj in Delhi, studying in some UK university. She happened to be a friend of my friend.<br/><br/>Very upfront and very talkative, she immediately found out that I work for Zee News, noticing the strap of my office ID hanging from my pocket.<br/><br/>Call it her charm or my chatting prowess; we immediately struck a conversation without any formal introduction.<br/><br/>I would love to pat my back for being a very good listener because within minutes of our meeting, she was telling me about how her fiancé proposed her publicly and how embarrassed she was then. And then ‘it’ happened.<br/><br/>In the middle of the conversation, I casually mentioned how I slipped on stairs just a day before ‘Eid’ and missed the festivities because of being injured.<br/><br/>Her beautiful eyes spread wide in amusement rather than disbelief as her immediate reaction was—“You don’t look like a Muslim”.<br/><br/>I must admit that the reaction was purely genuine as after all it is not everyday that she sees a ‘Muslim’ wearing a Wrangler jeans and T-Shirt, sporting Reebok shoes and talking about ‘Hard Rock ’, Linkin Park and Chester Bennington, sitting at a Café Coffee Day at South Campus of Delhi University.<br/><br/>Though, this was not the first time that somebody reacted like this, it was probably the first time that I tried to find out whether I should be happy or angry at this reaction.<br/><br/>I don’t know if it was due to the recent terror incidents or just the bluntness of the girl, but for the first time ever in my life, I bothered to find out whether it is good or bad if I don’t ‘look’ like a Muslim.<br/><br/>Call it a branding, marginalisation or pure stereotypes, but people in general still perceive a common Muslim as the ‘Kurta’ wearing, beard flaunting and skull cap sporting breed. This inspite of top Bollywood stars being Muslims.<br/><br/>And after the recent terror attacks, a bomb is presumably added to this attire. <br/><br/>So, unknowingly I have become the moderate face of Muslims among my peers, because though I keep fast for the holy month of Ramzaan I don’t offer Namaz five times a day and also because I keep saying ‘Alhamdulillah’ every time I sneeze but don’t sport a beard.<br/><br/>Another thing: I just fail to understand that why casual acquaintances start telling me about the other Muslim friend with whom they shared a great rapport, about how they know everything about Ramzaan fasting, Eid, Sewaiyan, some ‘Pir Baba’ who used to give ‘taweez’ and how not all the Muslims are terrorists and India seriously requires a secular mindset to completely understand the minority communities, as soon as they realise that I am also a Muslim.<br/><br/>I mean, these things are good but one need not necessarily know all these to become my friend or to strike a chat with me. I think one can talk of any topic of common interest. But these are stereotypes. They are hard to do away with.<br/><br/>I don’t know when this stereotype will make way for the real imagery. But till the time it happens, I am happy surprising “pretty, young ladies”.