"Hey, buddy, it's okay to say 'excuse me' when you bump somebody," Landon Bouvier said to the tall, skinny young Indian guy who glared at him hatefully after bumping him, hard, on the bus. When the dude stared hard without replying, Landon poked him on the shoulder, at which point the guy muttered something unintelligible before getting off the bus. Passive aggressive little bozo, Landon thought, a bit annoyed.
The fake smiles, passive-aggression and small-mindedness that were all too pervasive among the denizens of the City of Ottawa, Ontario, bothered the hell out of Landon. You're here for school and work, don't let these bozos get to you, Landon reminded himself, and he sighed deeply. Ottawa was very different from Cap-Haitien, on the northern shore of the island of Haiti, where he was born and raised. Fake town full of fake people, Landon thought dryly.
The 88 Bus heading to Hurdman Station via Nepean was packed with passengers on this rain-soaked night, but two of them seemed to on the receiving end of a lot of attention from everyone around them. Landon Bouvier, a big and tall, dark-skinned young Haitian man with dreads, and his lady, Ramandeep Khalra, sat at the back of the bus, still a bit woozy after running across the parking lot from Walmart to catch the OC Transpo bus.
"Sudara ( handsome), relax, this dude wasn't happy to see us together, my love, you should learn to ignore fools like that," Ramandeep said, her Punjabi accent adding a lovely lilt to her soft, even-tempered voice. Landon looked at her and smiled, then impulsively took her sleek hand and brought it to his lips. Ramandeep blushed and shook her head. She was the only one who ever saw this side of Landon. My big teddy bear, Ramandeep thought with a smile.
Ramandeep was keenly aware of people of South Asian descent looking at her and Landon everywhere they went. As they walked inside the Walmart located near Baseline Station, shopping for groceries and other items, people stared. Even though Ottawa was a racially diverse town where almost half the population was some sort of minority or another, apparently there were lines not meant to be crossed.
Ramandeep thought of how much her life had changed since she moved to the City of Ottawa, Ontario, from the City of Ferozepur, in the Punjab State of India. Ramandeep came to Canada fleeing the end of a bad marriage, and estrangement from both her parents, Sandeep and Jagdeep Khalra, and those of her ex-husband, Dhillon. At the age of twenty six, Ramandeep sought to start a new life in Canada, free from the past, and got more than she bargained for.
Good Indian girls don't mess with black men, or so the conventional wisdom goes among Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and others, Ramandeep thought, and for a brief moment, she closed her eyes, hard. The animosity that a lot of people from her part of the world felt toward her beloved Landon and people who looked like him irked Ramandeep, but she felt there was very little she could do about it.
"I'll show you around, brother, I can tell you're lost," Ramandeep's very first words to Landon, on the fateful afternoon in late August when they met. She remembered the very first time she laid eyes on Landon, who was walking around the Algonquin College campus, looking for the registration office. Ramandeep, who was in her second year in the Nursing programme, remembered how confusing the big campus could be for a newcomer, and offered to 'help a brother out,' as they say nowadays...
