A couple days ago I received a phone call from a courier company. They had a package for me that they had attempted to deliver to the service apartment in Bangalore I was staying at, but the front desk had refused to accept it.
I wasn't expecting a package from anyone, so I was surprised. Where was the package from, I asked the guy. Namakkal, he said. I was now very puzzled. Namakkal is a town in Tamil Nadu, and I don't know a soul in Namakkal (not counting Ramanujan). What kind of package was it, I inquired. The size of a box of CDs, he said. Who was the package from?. The guy at the other end apparently couldn't figure out the name, so his response was halting. Zia, he said, a bit uncertainly. I was spooked. I figured that the name must be a handwritten scribble; why else would he have a hard time reading it out? The name threw me for a loop: I visualized a bearded fundamentalist shipping me a deadly letter bomb. I asked the courier guy to hold off delivery.
I thought about it for a few minutes, and thought the better of postponing delivery. I called the courier company back, and asked them to attempt a second delivery the next day. It is said that doing the same thing again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Nevertheless, I asked him, again, who the sender was. Again, he strained to read out the name. It was different this time: Jeeva Puthalyan, he mumbled.
Instinctively, I typed "Jeeva Puthalyan Namakkal" into google. Halfway through typing, google autocompleted it to Jeeva Puthakalayam. That's 'Jeeva Bookstore' in Thamizh. That sparked a recognition: I had ordered a few Thamizh books for my mother from Amazon India.
I try to be thoughtful and fair-minded on issues relating to race, religion, gender and ethnicity. Apparently, evicting the Inner Bigot is easier said than done.
I wasn't expecting a package from anyone, so I was surprised. Where was the package from, I asked the guy. Namakkal, he said. I was now very puzzled. Namakkal is a town in Tamil Nadu, and I don't know a soul in Namakkal (not counting Ramanujan). What kind of package was it, I inquired. The size of a box of CDs, he said. Who was the package from?. The guy at the other end apparently couldn't figure out the name, so his response was halting. Zia, he said, a bit uncertainly. I was spooked. I figured that the name must be a handwritten scribble; why else would he have a hard time reading it out? The name threw me for a loop: I visualized a bearded fundamentalist shipping me a deadly letter bomb. I asked the courier guy to hold off delivery.
I thought about it for a few minutes, and thought the better of postponing delivery. I called the courier company back, and asked them to attempt a second delivery the next day. It is said that doing the same thing again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Nevertheless, I asked him, again, who the sender was. Again, he strained to read out the name. It was different this time: Jeeva Puthalyan, he mumbled.
Instinctively, I typed "Jeeva Puthalyan Namakkal" into google. Halfway through typing, google autocompleted it to Jeeva Puthakalayam. That's 'Jeeva Bookstore' in Thamizh. That sparked a recognition: I had ordered a few Thamizh books for my mother from Amazon India.
I try to be thoughtful and fair-minded on issues relating to race, religion, gender and ethnicity. Apparently, evicting the Inner Bigot is easier said than done.
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