At Jane station waiting for the 195 rocket, there are no lines. This is pretty distinctive in the Toronto I've been in so far, with people queuing coffee shops and food places which curve in ways that I don't intuitively get. My political science-visible minority brain scans the predominantly nonwhite crowd and interprets the two knowledges and feels a kinship. Yet a discomfort- I don't know this context, since 'everything in advanced countries moves in straight lines' helps me make sense, what should I do here?
Today the 195 stands at a distance from the busstop, waiting for the lane to clear. The bus is empty, its a few steps away from the stop, I'm going to be late for office hours... I am hopping from foot to foot, and yet the impulse to scan everyone else around me, to mimic what they do and blend in, kicks in. No one is in line, and no one else looks impatient like I do. When it's time to get on the bus, a Very attractive man gives me a smile and motions that I climb in ahead of him.
(This is how I eat with people. I watch the way they cut into their chicken with knife and fork, how the dab on hot sauce and pile on some rice. I do it slowly, and I chatter or fade, drawing away attention from fingers that can't manipulate food the way they used to anymore.)
Lately the question of blending in is on my mind. I wanted to wear a sari as fall faded, knowing scarves and gloves and coats would soon be upon me. I did wear it once, to Chinatown and then to a Palestine film festival, a costumed-ally in multiculti Toronto. I could wear it to class maybe? Maybe an an experiment. Catalogue how many looks, how many compliments, beautiful/graceful/so complicated/I could never manage that.
The more I thought about that, the more I feel like it would be a 1000 times more unbearable here than back in Delhi. Saris, my mother's saris that I usually wear, would feel like skin, and these gender studies, intersectional eyes and words would flay it raw.
Or maybe they won't. Maybe I am over-imagining the attention. Maybe, in their own academic multiculti Canadian society women's studies way, they won't give a shit. I can't decide which is worse.
Today the 195 stands at a distance from the busstop, waiting for the lane to clear. The bus is empty, its a few steps away from the stop, I'm going to be late for office hours... I am hopping from foot to foot, and yet the impulse to scan everyone else around me, to mimic what they do and blend in, kicks in. No one is in line, and no one else looks impatient like I do. When it's time to get on the bus, a Very attractive man gives me a smile and motions that I climb in ahead of him.
(This is how I eat with people. I watch the way they cut into their chicken with knife and fork, how the dab on hot sauce and pile on some rice. I do it slowly, and I chatter or fade, drawing away attention from fingers that can't manipulate food the way they used to anymore.)
Lately the question of blending in is on my mind. I wanted to wear a sari as fall faded, knowing scarves and gloves and coats would soon be upon me. I did wear it once, to Chinatown and then to a Palestine film festival, a costumed-ally in multiculti Toronto. I could wear it to class maybe? Maybe an an experiment. Catalogue how many looks, how many compliments, beautiful/graceful/so complicated/I could never manage that.
The more I thought about that, the more I feel like it would be a 1000 times more unbearable here than back in Delhi. Saris, my mother's saris that I usually wear, would feel like skin, and these gender studies, intersectional eyes and words would flay it raw.
Or maybe they won't. Maybe I am over-imagining the attention. Maybe, in their own academic multiculti Canadian society women's studies way, they won't give a shit. I can't decide which is worse.
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