Naah, this is not a racist post. I leave it to Madrasan and other intelligent Open Letter Writers. Well, I guess the readers (sorry for adding the’s’) of this blog know what does the word ‘Chinki’ refer to. In case you don’t know, ‘Chinkis’ is a term collectively used for all the people from North East. Please check out the North Eastern states of India sometimes for General Knowledge purpose at least. Who knows one might ask you the names of those states in some Quiz. We even cross the boundary which means North refers to full China and Mongolia while East refers to all the South Asian countries till Japan. Also, anyone with small eyes and identical facial features are called as Chinkis.
The only human contact I had with them, had been in distant past, like the one which is in faint Black and White and not even Sepia. My bus conductor in 1st Standard was a Nepali along with some of the helper staff of school who also used to add Bahadur at the end of their names. Nice people. Few other I had met usually in restaurants as waiters or they were cooks who made awesome chowmein and lately Momos and Gobhi Manchurian. Cutting it short, I had just met those Chinkis whose monthly income was in the order of twice or thrice of ’32 Rs.’ benchmark. Sad.
Then I came to Bangalore and went to Brigade Road. Here the scene was very different. Here, the crowd was all Yo! types and Chinkis here were all tip-top, Haute Couture clan, ready to ramp-walk types, tattooed and Yo! All the chain of restaurants who serve Chinese (food) like Beijing Bites, Chung Wah, Mainland China still hire North Eastern Indians so that ambience looks realistic. Obviously, I had grown enough to understand that India contains every kind, poor and rich and these uneven extremities are equally distributed all over. Irony.
Point is, I was slightly saddened by the treatment we Non-Chinkis give to them. Like collectively, people termed South Indians as Madrasis, the title Chinkis has been given to them. Idiotic, although handy to use. While we have amalgamated Northies and Madrasis, we are yet to consider them part of our group. They actually stay away from doing the usual Indian things as well. None of them may be a rapper but they wear that cap tilted and wearing low waist jeans, so low that even Mariana Trench is shy. I am also aware of the treatment girls get in NCR at the hands of high testosterone Brothers from Several Mothers of North Indian states.
In the start of this month I went to Goa. Be jealous. And it was raining all day and night. Laugh. We were a group of 9 guys so we could not enter any disc/pub because they allowed only couple entry. Laugh out Loud, yes you can. So somehow we got to know about 1 decent-ish disco where they allowed Stags. Bloody, this is racism, calling Single guys stag. Anyways, so when we entered the shady ambience, we could see that it was filled mostly by sweaty guys who were dancing like people dance in Baraats. Amidst the sea of guys, there were strategically placed girls, and you guessed it right, they all were Chinkis. The reason of placing them was obvious. They wanted to attract guys who would normally not think of going to a male only disc. Since those girls were like Flood Relief Kits being dropped in a drought, people were continuously bugging them by dancing around them, trying to just touch and eventually asking the ‘rate’ drooling and leaking drinks and other things probably all over. Now, they were not prostitutes as such, I hope, but even a blind guy would ogle at the kind of clothes they were wearing and the makeup they were carrying. The advantage of placing Chinkis there was definitely there because they obviously look different than our usual. And some of the girls were infact paid sex workers, no shit Sherlock.
Though I consider them totally Indians by every means possible and they totally are as well, but sometimes one goes through certain experiences which demeans the whole belief in one go. Not saying that non-Chinkis are all milk-cleaned people with halo over there head, but if we Indians could respect each other’s culture a bit more, I would have been happier. I wish they get mixed in others and allowed others to mix with them. Sometimes, one is responsible for one’s own fate or probably halaat made them like that.
P.S.: Whenever one imagines a Chinki, one can hear Oriental music in background with people eating noodles from a bowl and with chopsticks. Just a myth. They just know Martial Arts well, that’s it.
P.P.S.: Thanks for not commenting with phrases like ‘Oh, seems like you’re in love with one of them’. Just a myth. I just like some of them just like I like my readers.
P.P.P.S.: I assume it is a very mild post written with no brain applied at all. Apologies.
