Racial Profiling? Not just the Muslims...

Watched My Name is Khan. Good movie. But while in the hall Shah Rukh kept stressing again and again in the U.S of A that his name is Khan, and that he isn't a terrorist, I remembered something that happened to me a long time ago, in my own backyard, as it were. I had gone to Bhubaneshwar, to appear for an M.A. level entrance test of the University of Hyderabad in the Utkal University. After alighting from the Dhauli Express, I headed straight for the rickshaw stand. My Oriya (now Odiya, of course) rickshaw-puller uncles measured me with lusty eyes. When I reached ear-shot, each one competitively shouted "where to?" I named the place. "How much?" I asked. At this, one of the professorial types came forward and said, "see, the rate's twenty, but you'll have to shell out twenty-five". When I politely pointed out that I ain't a foriegner, they collectively (and even more politely) pointed out that I ain't an Oriya either. I was shocked! This was my first brush with some kind of profiling (regional). No matter how much we shout from our rooftops about America's frisking the Kalams and Khans of our country, racial, regional and caste profiling exists in our own motherland too. Mera Bharat Mahan, Problem Mein Hain Hum Sab, Chatterjee Ho Ya Khan