On This Day in 2001
As we were about to enter the local store, a group of men charged at us, shouting, "Arabs, Arabs"; my friend and I froze like a deer in headlights.
On this day in 2001, I was at Penn State pursuing my graduate studies and living in a studio near the university campus. I woke up late, around 9ish, and went out to attend a class around 10-10:30. On my way, I saw many students sitting on the pavement crying.
I had no idea what was happening; the whole town felt like some inexplicable dreadful thing had hit it. I attended the class on Probability Theory; no one said anything about the crash. Still clueless, I went to the library; I saw the planes hitting the towers being played on televisions but still didn't register its significance until later in the evening when I was forced to acknowledge how I was living inside the inflection point of the world in transition.
In the evening, my friend, Rishi, called me, and we decided to go and grab some beer. Later in the evening, after exercising much self-control as we both were struggling to quit our smoking habit, we hesitatingly walked to a local store near the downtown movie theater to buy a pack of cigarettes.
As we were about to enter the store, a group of men charged at us, shouting, "Arabs, Arabs"; my friend and I froze like a deer in headlights.
All I could muster to counter them after a moment was, "Hey, I am from India; why are you shouting 'Arabs' at me?"
I noticed two bulkier men looking at my friend, who had long hippie hair and a long beard. That's when I realized what was happening; fortunately, a few men standing on the pavement came and stopped the guys charging at us before they could harm us.
That was the most intense experience of fear until that moment in my life. That moment became a vantage point from which I would measure, comprehend, and probe the nature of fear for the rest of my life. The only other time I experienced fear of such intensity would be in Rwanda in 2014, within a month of my arrival there!
I, too, used to have a beard, but I had decided to get rid of it earlier in the year in my effort to give birth to a new ‘me’ in the country of dreams and aspirations!
It was then that we sat down and tried to make sense of the world thrust on us. I looked at my friend and said, “Rishi, you need to get rid of your hair.”
Totally shaken by the experience, my friend went hysterical. He was born in the US and was in a much better position to understand what was unfolding around him. What all he told about his own experiences and experiences of black friends shocked me; it was my second introduction to the social and historical faultlines in the country (the first one I will share in my future post). It took me a few weeks to convince my friend to get rid of his hair! My friend moved to the other extreme, and he never even grew his hair again.
The War on Terror unleashed by the Allied forces ended up shaping my understanding of myself and the world around me. The violence in the wake of 9|11 forced me to look for an alternative narrative for human flourishing. Most of my writings and pursuits around the idea of humility and non-violence have been shaped by the forces set in motion in the wake of 9|11.
This is a powerful story. I am so sorry you and your friend went through this traumatic experience. I feel stories such as this one have the power to create empathy, and hopefully someday, can help change how humans relate to each other. Thanks for sharing this strong story.