Chitra Ramaswamy: Another case of mistaken identity

Published on Sunday 11 April 2010 11:37

AH! I bet the following never happens to you. My guess is that you go into a shop, choose what you want, pay for it and leave. Sadly this is not my experience. I have to explain my ethnic origin before I'm allowed to hand over the cash for my paper and pint of milk. It's very irritating to hold out a note and be asked by the man (always a man) behind the counter, "Pakistani? Indian?" "No," I want to scream. "Semi-skimmed!"

Basically, I'm treated much like Gordon Brown and David Cameron in the run-up to the general election. By this I mean I have to sell my own identity, justify all my decisions and make empty promises, not that I have a pin-striped crew of attack dogs and spin doctors at the ready to clean up after me. If only.

Last week it happened again. There was I in a local shop in Leith, minding my own business, trying to decide whether to go for coriander or basil. Fresh herbs are so over-priced that I want to take a stand – but I can't be bothered to go to the supermarket. It's a tough call, not quite up there with how to bring down the budget deficit, but close enough. I go for the basil, not realising this is not just a toss-up between curry and pasta for tea, nay, it is a decision about national identity. And according to the Pakistani man behind the counter (I know this because he insists on telling me), I've come down on the wrong side. "Take the coriander," he orders.

"I don't want it," I reply staunchly, knowing exactly where this is heading. And so it instantly comes to pass.

"Indian?" he asks. I sigh so voluminously the basil leaves rustle on the counter.

"I'm from London," I say patiently, a sentence I hear myself uttering so often it sounds like my epitaph.

"No," he persists. "India."

I picture the two of us continuing like this from here to eternity, the basil perspiring and wilting between us. No, I think, life is too short. So I attempt to placate him with more information. "My parents are from India. I was born in London." It's like I've taken a wind turbine to the flames.

"If your parents are Indian then you are Indian."

Now, I'm all for a bit of friendly banter between strangers, but having to explain where I'm from, only to be told that I've got it wrong, is just too much. It's exhausting, depressing and smacks of small-mindedness. It certainly doesn't foster a feeling of belonging.

Sometimes I give in, make a joke of it and take my frustration away with my shopping. But not this time. "Look," I say, taking a deep breath, "I'm Indian in so far as it's my ethnic origin, but I am from London. That's where I grew up, that's what I know."

The man promptly brings out his trump card, summoning his teenage son from the back. "You are Pakistani," he says.

His son squirms in his Hibs T-shirt. "Dad," he mutters, "I'm Scottish." The next generation has spoken. Britain isn't broken after all. I go home and eat pasta.

&#149 This article was first published in Scotland on Sunday, April 11, 2010