This is a short story with a long mes­sage. If you get it, you are blessed, if not, read again.

He called me by the name I had loathed ever since I was a kinder­garten stu­dent.

I did not know its mean­ing but I could make out that I was be­ing looked down upon when I had heard this word thrown upon me for the first time by a sneer­ing group of se­nior boys in the school bus.

And how vividly I re­call that day from my early ado­les­cent years when I en­coun­tered that sit­u­a­tion dur­ing an in­ter-school cricket match! I was hu­mil­i­ated with the word when the cap­tain of my team was run out due to my mis­take and we lost the match. I had rushed home and cried silently af­ter lock­ing my­self in the wash­room. And my mother had made so many fu­tile at­tempts to know why I was cry­ing af­ter I re­turn­ing from the school grounds that af­ter­noon. That was the last time I cried though. I used to play re­ally well but I dis­con­tin­ued play­ing the sport that af­ter­noon.

The num­ber of in­stances surged over time when some­one mocked me, call­ing me that name. Be­lieve me, it had af­fected my blood the way qui­nine af­fects the blood cells to kill malaria par­a­sites. I have ac­tu­ally no­ticed mos­qui­toes dy­ing af­ter pulling a sup from my blood ves­sels.

And how can you over­look the mus­cles that I wear to­day? It’s not that I have been a gym en­thu­si­ast from the be­gin­ning. It’s only af­ter a cou­ple of those mus­cle-test­ing chances when I tried to show some re­sis­tance to their bul­ly­ing that I felt a need to re­spond. All at the gym en­vied my weight-lift­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties. They could only dream of car­ry­ing the weight I lifted in each set.

I un­der­stood that oth­ers fear you as a re­sult of the power you pos­sess. No­body dared tak­ing that name in front of me. I over­heard the noun at my back some­times but al­ways tried not to look back and let go. When­ever the fumes of fury be­gan to rise, I would hit the gym or pedal kilo­me­ters on a de­serted road to dis­charge the pus that the word would fill in the pores of my soul.

But I had be­gun to be afraid of the rage sulk­ing in­side me more than any­thing that out­side me. I made a promise to my­self that I would let the word strengthen me, make me tougher and more pa­tient against the hard­ships life has in store.

Yet to­day, when this man called me by the same name in front of my child… the dor­mant froth of bit­ter anger at hu­mil­i­a­tion resur­faced. This was un­like any­thing I had ex­pe­ri­enced. It was like  some hor­mones had taken the back­seat let­ting oth­ers to take the wheel. I could never feel that these peo­ple I come across every­day are my com­pa­tri­ots, and prob­a­bly, I did not want my child to be­gin think­ing on the lines I had been made to.

I have never said any­thing wrong to any­one all my life. They have been do­ing it, and per­sis­tently. I want to know what gives them the right to be­have as if they are the pri­mal land­lords of the na­tion, and I some kind of loath­some ver­min.

Yes, I hit that man. But it was just a blow. I did not know it would be fa­tal for him. I could wit­ness drops of my bit­ter blood com­ing to­gether in the veins criss­cross­ing my bi­ceps and flow­ing down to the fist where the lava of my rage had al­ready ac­cu­mu­lated. This all must have erupted to­gether in that sin­gle blow.

But judge sahib! If cir­cum­ci­sion is a part of my faith, why should one have a right to call me …?