The heat can make you tremendously sleepy! The heat, added to the cradle-like rocking of the subway, is just the setting for a nap amidst all of New York’s crowd. Just when my eyes were shutting down, a lean girl with a broad smile asked me if I was from the Journalism School, Columbia University. Sleepily, I said yes. Just to be polite I reciprocated by asking her the same question. She jumped and said that she was studying at the Sociology School, Columbia University. Her energy on that hot, fatigued afternoon amazed me.
She went on. She spoke a bit about where she lived. I half listened, and half slept. But, then something caught my attention. She said she was from Palestine. I sat up, attentive. I had met people from Israel and from Jerusalem. But had met no one who claimed they were from Palestine. Because, on the international map, there is no Palestine anymore.
I looked at her closely for the first time. She had a long face, pointed chin and deep-set brown eyes. She didn’t look typically Arab. When asked about it, she explained, she had Dutch ancestry.
We spent quite-an-hour discussing the troubled geo politics of the Middle East. I asked her what the Middle East looked like before 1948 (that was the year when Israel was formed and all the ‘Jewish lands’ were assimilated into one country). She started fiddling with the gold chain that was around her neck and held up a gold pendant. That, she said unemotionally, was how Middle East looked before 1948. The map included what is now Israel, Palestine, Gaza Strip and West Bank.
That was a very powerful moment. People wear pendants of their names, their loved ones or something as impersonal as a butterfly or a rose. She felt such deep affection for her country, she held it as close to her as possible.
Then she passionately scribbled a map of how the Middle East looks now on a piece of paper. She said that would help me better understand it.
She said that she has to go through a check post for almost everything in her country – a mall, a store, a library. She also gave a graphic account of how there are ghettos and segregation – there are Arab buses and Israeli buses in the same towns, Arab schools and Israeli schools and of course, separate neighbourhoods.
She told me she was working with children’s theatre in Jerusalem for two years. Her family is in a small village of Palestine. They speak Dutch and Arabic at home. And, that her sister is a law student.
Then it suddenly struck me, that I knew everything about her but her name! The conversation was so engaging that I forgot to ask Dina Zbidat her name and even she forgot to tell me!
Made me wonder how her nationality was more of her identity than her own name! Made me wonder how we take our nationality for granted. Made me wonder how it becomes so important to ‘belong’ somewhere.
For the first time, Shakespeare made absolute sense to me when he said ‘what is in a name’.
Raksha Kumar
12 comments:
Amazing!
Shows how lives of people are shaped by the matrix of world affairs, without them having any control of their existence.
Made me think of Khamosh Pani, when Kirron Kher says ( Apna ki hai phir)
Sometimes, if u are en emotional person, u get attached to streets/shops/ur chair in office where u sit or people you meet
The story of the girl u met may sound different from ours purely because of her geographical (dis)placement but at another level, perhaps metaphorically we are looking for a certain sense of belongingness at vairous stages of our lives that may or may not be in conflict with social situation, which is the case with the Palestinian girl.
This is one of your best pieces so far!
Cheers
but of course this is not to belittle her situation, considering the kind of society she comes from where discrimination is at every step.
We, of course, are living in blessed times.
But hey, have u read news reports about how China is building some houses in PoK! and how the state's official mouthpiece ran a poll on the chances of China attacking India
Sometimes I think had Indira Gandhi been alive and still the PM,how would she have tackled some of these problems of today? Naxals/Pakistan dialogue/terrorism
True, many have wondered as have I, about how we'd be if Indira or someone as strong (and brutal?!) as her were alive.
But, the thing to keep in mind about such reports is that they may be blown out of proportion. It may be a routine meno... I haven't read it, so dont know... but it can be a thousand different things. They need to be checked a zillion times before they are taken seriously.
Isn't it weird that you only took interest when you realized where she was from? There seems to something disturbing about that.
Adi, Why? What is disturbing about that? There are a thousand people who speak to you (or want to speak to you) on the subway. Obviously, only certain things catch your attention. This was one of it.
Oh, and by the way, it is not where she was from that caught my attention... but just that, she called it Palestine in a world where no one does.
There are a thousand people in the world but there weren't at the table.
She went on. She spoke a bit about where she lived. I half listened, and half slept. But, then something caught my attention. She said she was from Palestine. I sat up, attentive.
I'm just saying, the way it reads, you only found her interesting enough to listen to because she comes from a country where there is a lot of political & religious tension. A person shouldn't be interesting because they come from a disputed land? As a journalist yes but as a human being? I think that was disturbing.
Raksha,
This is my personal favorite of all your blogs! Nationalism has a close ally in freedom. When people look upon an identification and what can suffice it more than one's nation (not country! mind you....) And its hardly a surprise that Dina's upbringing in such a segregated state keeps her nation close to her heart... Literally!
Adi, once again. It was not the fact that she came from a disputed land, but where she said she came from. NO ONE says they are from Palestine in today's world. She has an Israeli passport, by the way.
It is only natural, as a human being and as a journalist to become curious when people say they are from countries that do not exist on the world map!!!
And, anyway, a very huge part of who I am is my identity as a journalist. So, I still don't see what was so disturbing there. Sorry.
Adi, read Vinay's comment. He has hit the nail on the head. The point was that 'Dina's upbringing in such a segregated state keeps her nation close to her heart'
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