Amit Ohdedar

What a tormenting week it was, especially if you WERE an Indian and/or an immigrant to this country.

To start with one had to deal with the fact that we do not look like a “New Zealander” – to be implicitly read as ‘white…”. So we desis were left once again to fend for our gora aspirations. As if we haven’t tried!  What about the fairness cream – “Fair and Lovely”? And “dudh ki malai” – the cream of milk facial therapy? Does Henry even know about “haldi-chandan” (turmeric and sandalwood fairness combo)? What about the millions of Indian middle class girls that have kept L’Oreal afloat through the sub-prime crisis! Check shaadi.com for once! For how many generations HAVE Indians been trying to lighten their skin? Maybe Paul, I thought, would promote a reality television of an extreme make-over that would make us attain that final metamorphosis and the moksha! And then Bob will be our uncle and so will Paul– no one to question the veracity of our application for GG in Wellington the next time!

Then there was the CWG to deal with – yes the Comedy Wallah Games I mean. What a tension and a nightmare! Will there be shit on the bed or in the bathroom! It was a collapsing bridge yesterday, will it be a crumbled stadium tomorrow! Can there be a curry and no belly bug? Will the water of the swimming pool be as pure as that of the Ganges – better not! The list went on! We are Indian as Henry says and so we ought to be appropriately in Di***n S**t!

Well that was going too far and again Henry should have known better! This s**t is 9 billion dollars worth and rising. Just like the Indian Sensex in Bombay or the Maoists in the heartland! Well at least he has resigned just in time, saving poor John Key from further trouble from the wrath of the Indian state and the pending Fonterra contracts probably!

But then I saw Valerie win the shot-put medal this morning. And the whole demeanour of being a champion and looking like one! I saw the way she engaged with the crowd, the way she took the other medallists IN her stride for the photo, the grace with which she looked humble yet proud in her accomplishment, all of which culminated when the crowd burst out into a huge cheer for her and by default for this beautiful nation at the end of “Save the nation”(GOD DEFEND NEW ZEALAND)?? anthem.  In one whisker this champion of Tongan heritage, raised in the multiethnic kaleidoscope of South Auckland, lifted the mana of this country in the eyes of the largest democracy of the world! Come to think of it, just like this young nation state, India for more than two thousand years has done the same thing over and over and over again – tolerated and supported diversity, welcomed and enriched from, rather than being xenophobic of someone who may look different or speak a strange language. Petty politicians, religious bigots or ignorant journalists can only make small dents to these values from time to time but largely they stay intact just like the light of Diwali or the Olympic flame.

Thank you Valerie – I do not need to have that extreme make-over after all!