"Oops, oh man, I'm so sorry," Alia Patwardhan said sheepishly, looking at the tall young Black man standing at a corner of the elevator began sniffing the air. That's when his lip curled in distaste, and his eyes widened in surprise. For a certain tall, Hijab-wearing young Indian Muslim woman just let loose a thunderously loud fart, less than a meter from him. In that moment, if Alia could have found a hole to crawl into a disappear, she would have done so right then and there...
"Um, no worries, we all have those moments, ma'am, it's okay," the young man said, and he busied himself looking at his Ottawa Metro newspaper, apparently finding something very interesting in the second page. Alia took that as her cue to shut up, and remained silent during the sixty seconds it took the elevator to go from the first floor of the University Center Building to the Atrium on the fourth floor.
"Good day," the young Black man said curtly, and he walked through the crowded Atrium, headed for the Tory Building. Alia Patwardhan watched him go and shook her head, both at the comical situation and her lousy luck. Ever since Alia moved to the City of Ottawa, Ontario, from her hometown of Sangli, in the Maharashtra region of Western India, she couldn't seem to do anything right. And now, thanks to those damn cheese sandwiches at Tim Horton's, Alia just had the most embarrassing moment of her life.
"Damn this place and those foreign foods," Alia said to herself, sighing as she headed to the ladies room located right next to the Rooster's Café. It wasn't her fault that the Tim Horton's menu included so much pork, with their sausages and bacon, that no true Muslim would dare order a meat sandwich there. Alia had grown to like Tim Horton's food, however, and always ordered a cheese sandwich, sans meat, along with her overly sugared coffee and hash browns. Today, though, her preferences backfired spectacularly...
As Alia readjusted the pins in her Hijab, she looked in the washroom mirror. A tall, brown-skinned and rather chubby young woman looked back at her. At five-foot-ten, Alia stood taller than most of the other girls in metropolitan Sangli. Her fondness for sweetmeats also meant that she was bigger than a lot of them, too. Nothing she could do about it. I take life as it comes and accept myself, Alia thought, smiling at her reflection.
In the City of Ottawa, though, Alia had seen a lot of women far taller than herself, as well as men who were quite shorter. The Canadian capital had begun to fascinate her with its strange and unique ways. Men and women of all hues and backgrounds called the Capital of Canada their home, and Alia found it so different from her birthplace. Ottawa is like a new world, Alia thought, on her very first day in the Capital.
In the City of Sangli, Western India, everyone knew what everyone was. The Hindus made up seventy one percent of the town population, and the Muslims were a steady ( and climbing ) twenty one percent. Buddhists, Christians and Sikhs made up the remainder of the population. The different religious and ethnic groups were polite but distant in their dealings with one another, interfaith and intercultural marriages were rare, and that suited just about everyone in modern India.
The Muslims were friendly enough to other cultural and religious groups in the City of Sangli, and largely kept to themselves. Alia grew up hearing her family members trade laughs about the Hindu majority and their sacred cows, which they considered to be superstitious rubbish, and they were oddly respectful toward the Sikhs, whose life philosophy sort of made sense.
In the City of Ottawa, Ontario, Alia had seen a lot of strangeness. The locals weren't as friendly as they first appeared. Around here, people would smile to your face and say negative things behind your back. Sometimes they were quite tolerant and friendly, and other times they were quite vocal in their dislike of those who were different from themselves. Alia recalled the way an old White lady looked at her as she walked around the Billings Bridge Mall, and inquired about the ladies room. The old woman gave Alia a look of sheer disgust.
"If you can't read the signs, you ought to go back to your country," the old White lady said, and even though Alia was new to Ottawa, the raw hatred she saw in the lady's frosty blue eyes cut her to her core. As Alia stood there, trying to think of a comeback, the old lady rejoined her husband who stood at the foot of the steps and they made their way onto the bridge separating the shopping center from the nearby OC Transpo bus station.
"This country isn't what I expected," Alia said to herself as she finally walked out of the Atrium washroom, and headed for the Mac Odrum Library. Once there, she made her way to her favorite computer terminal, sat down and logged on. The first thing the young woman did was to check out her Facebook, where she had about twenty seven friends. Most of them were either new classmates and a few people from back home in India. Alia wasn't exactly the outgoing type, and as far as she was concerned, this was a good thing.
When noon hit, Alia paused her computer, and took a look around the campus library. She didn't have time to rush back to the prayer space located inside the University Center Building. Rushing to the ladies room, she went in and cleansed her hands and feet, as well as her face, with cold water. Afterwards, she dried her hands and exited the ladies room. Returning to the computer area, she saw that there was no one seated in her row. Satisfied, Alia took off her shoes, and began her prayer.
Standing with her hands folded before herself, her eyes closed, Alia intoned the prayer that her father, Imam Mohammed Patwardhan had taught her back at the family house, located near the Masjid in Sangli. Bowing low before the Maker of All Things, Alia then pressed her forehead to the floor, in a gesture of supplication. After a few minutes, Alia concluded her prayer, and returned to her seat. A few White students seated at nearby computers looked at her, and Alia flashed them her warmest smile. This had the effect of making them look away, just like Alia knew it would.
"Excuse me, is this computer taken?" came a voice, and Alia looked up, and gasped. For before her stood a tall, handsome and well-dressed young Black man who looked disturbingly familiar. Alia almost cried out when she recognized the guy from the elevator, the one in front of whom she tooted quite loudly. The guy looked at her, a deadpan expression on his face, and Alia realized that he expected an answer from her.
"Um, no, go ahead," Alia said, and she swiftly removed her backpack from the computer next to hers, something she often did to discourage people from sitting next to her. The young Black man nodded thankfully and sat down, and immediately logged on. Alia watched as he went straight to YouTube, but instead of looking at movies, or sexy dancing girls, the dude watched some kind of documentary.
