Masks

Watched the recent episode of ‘Tamizha Tamizha’ in Zee Tamil channel – the topic is on skintone (Fair Skin Vs Dark Skin). Would love to narrate an incident in this context.

Travelled to Montreal last December – it was only for a couple of days. It was snowing, obviously. I planned to visit the Mount Royal Park (from where the city got its name) on a Sunday morning. Approached a taxi to take me in, and the black taxi driver outrightly refused to drive me, as I didn’t have the correct address. He sounded very harsh. I was surprised, as this is an obvious location, and anyone living in the city, esp, the taxi driver is supposed to know. As I was very new to the place, I was too scared to talk anything.

I sought the help of the Hotel Front desk, and they shared the right address. I approached the same driver again, and he took me in. He drove me to the address notified by the help desk. This was apparently the base of the mount, and I was asked to walk up the mount. I got perplexed as there was literally nobody going up the mount(Obviously, who would want to walk in the snowing weather on a Sunday morning, right?). Speechless for I had known the driver’s harshness a few minutes ago, I was undecided about what to do.

That’s when the hero of the driver (the same driver who was very harsh a while ago) re-assured me and offered to show me around. He was too kind, way too kind that initially, I was even scared of being kidnapped. Such a beatific smile, and such kindness. He took me to the top of the mount, cautioning that it was too deserted, showed me places around, took me to 2 other tourist spots and then dropped me for lunch (refusing my offer to join). He didn’t ask for a penny extra than the meter.

Brooding over the incident, I realized that his initial harshness could have been a mask that he wore to keep away from the racial arrogance he could have been victimized to (too many speculations there). It also shone on me that if someone is ruthlessly, baselessly harsh, it is not a harshness against me. It is against the experiences they have been through. Such aggression is much better than an arrogant attitude masked in kindness.