I did not grow up with money around me, yet there was somehow enough to hire that woman who would come home twice a day to clean the dishes and sweep the floor and wipe it once. She was treated well, mother would most days have a roti for her with a cup of tea, have a bit of gossip while she ate her roti and drank her tea (in the special cup kept aside for her). Although she would have to sit on the kitchen floor to eat, she seemed to enjoy this routine; somehow my parents always referred to her as one of ‘those people’ (woh log) behind her back. I went to medical school, not a very bright student, actually quite a back bencher, happily surrounded by friends and every now and then into some prank or the other, but even among my friends, some were referred to as ‘ those people’ by the others. Something to do with being from a different caste and at times different religion or in Assam where I did my MBBS, even belonging to a group that speaks a different language. Clearly the outcome of not being born to the right parents, as though one gets to choose, but again, these guys were in general treated well. No one would beat up and burn ‘these other’ guys in those days. Or maybe I lived in a mirage, in a make-believe world where I refused to acknowledge that sometimes, ‘those people’ could get into trouble just for being different. When Indira Gandhi was killed by her own security men, ‘those people’ suffered, but I was in school and maybe, did not feel the full impact of what those people faced, maybe I was just plain insensitive, specially because I had friends who belonged to ‘those people’ and who suffered. I was in Kanpur, one of the worst effected cities in those frenzied times.

And now, ‘those people’ are being beaten up, shot, killed or raped everywhere because they are the ‘other people’ in today’s India. And all I do is to stand a mute spectator, cringe at the news headlines, call up friends who belong to the ‘other people’ to know if they are still safe and alive.

And I know now, that if only I had opposed my parents and my friends and my uncles and teachers when they called someone ‘ those people’ behind their backs, if only I had protested loudly and asked others to join in my protest, maybe this day would never have come? Maybe those who spread hatred for ‘those people’ would never have become so strong? Maybe one life somewhere would have been saved? Why was I so callous, and so stupid?