Who are you really?

R Arumugam @ Spiderman in action

I remember a time in primary school when Malaysia was playing hockey in the World Cup, and we were hosting them. One of my friends, ignorant that he was, predicted that Malaysia would lose, not because India is a good team but because Malaysia had too many players of Indian ethnicity. The Malaysians would not play with as much zest due to allegiance to their ancestral roots. Of course not, I told him. It was like the national goalie Spidey R Arumugam letting in a few goals during Merdeka tournament to India for old times’ sake. No way that was going to happen.

In the same way, I fail to see why many individuals of the Indian diaspora are getting all excited, ad nauseam, after the announcement of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden’s running mate. For the record, Kamala is half Indian on the maternal side and Jamaican on the other.

Kamala @ Momala with hubby and stepkids.

Kamala Harris is an American true and true. She was born in America, read in the American education system and lived the American Dream. True, the motivating factor in her life was her learned Tamil mother who migrated to the US for greener pastures. That is where it ends.

Beyond that, it is all politics. Ms Harris was initially riding on the African American ticket, but now that the Indian Americans are a force to be reckoned with and are mostly aligned to Trump and the Republican Party, there is a pressing need to woo the American Indians back to the Democratic Party.  

Charles Sobhraj

Whatever way the US election results swings out, it is not going in any way going to affect the day to day of an average person in the Indian diaspora. The leaders of any country have the best interest of the nation that elected to heart, not allegiance to the land that once bred their ethnicity but not kind enough to nurture them to full fruition that their ancestors had to fleet.

Funny nobody staked claim to proclaim Charles Sobhraj @ The Bikini Killer as an Indian when he hit the headlines four decades ago!

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