Just read this well-written blog titled “Not just a Muslim” in which the writer writes about the difficulties she faces as a Muslim among her friends and colleagues. It’s not just Muslims that become victims of religious or regional stereotypes it happens with every minority group. The same happens when Muslims are in majority and people of other religions are in a minority.
Sikhs, for instance, too face many stereotypical attitudes and in their case what makes this worse is people are normally ridiculing them while stereotyping them. So if you’re acting stupid you’re acting like a “Sardar” and there are umpteen jokes on Sardars. My brother-in-law, being a Sikh who wears a turban, used to face so much redicule (people cracking really nasty Sardar jokes in his presence) that he made up his mind that his son would not have long hair if they were going to stay in the same environment.
I used to protest vocally and sometimes I used to make up my own jokes as a counter-response (jokes on pundits, on having short hair, or having multiple gods). Just as people would impose silly situations on Sardars I would impose equally silly and ridiculous situations on Sharmas and Guptas and Rohatgis. And what made me feel good about them was that they used to be really funny and consequently used to piss my “friends” off big time. Not a good thing to do but it used to be quite effective. In senior school and college, despite having short hair, I used to make it apparent that I am a Sikh when they cracked Sardar jokes. After a while such jokes would stop, at least in my presence.
