Indian Superman

So listen up because I'm going to tell you a story about when I was a little younger.

So when I was 5 years old, all I wanted to be when I grew up was Superman.

I legit wanted to wear the tights and the red cape and fly and save people and all of that.

But there was one very specific problem.

You see, I'd grown up watching Superman, the old movies and reading the comics.

I was a big comic book fan when I was very young.

But my only concern was... was specifically this.

It was the fact that I was Indian.

You see, I didn't want to be Superman in India.

I wanted to be Superman in some other country where I saved people and I, and you know, I spoke to reporters in English and somebody put up the mic to my face and then said, you know, how do you save all these people? And then I gave them, you know, Gyan or whatever.

But the problem was that I was Indian and I knew that if I did all this in America or Europe or something, nobody would accept me.

My life wouldn't relate to the life that I'd seen Superman lead in the movies because I wasn't white-skinned.

In the sense that I didn't look like an American.

And that always irritated me.

I also knew I had an Indian accent.

I could totally imagine the scene where the reporter would come to me hold up the mic and then I'd say something and then the next day people make fun of me because I was Indian and this fear was so deep-seated in me when I was 12 or 13 years old and I joined you know a few online forums to actually create games and I was a I wanted to create games when I was younger but when I was obviously older than the superman period that was just a phase but when i was 12 or 13 um i joined these forums and i used to tell everybody that i'm australian right i never once mentioned that i was indian because i was just like okay what will these people think of me right because at that time especially in the world people didn't look up to indians at all like people didn't care about indians we were just the back office of the world they were treated poorly across the world and i was just like yeah i want to distance myself from that So every single time I'd be on MSN Messenger, I had a different name and I'd call myself...

I had some American name and I was just like...

I changed my American name all the time and I would avoid having voice conversations because then people would know what my voice sounded like.

So it was always this game of hide and seek.

I didn't want people to know I was Indian because I didn't feel like I'd be included or I didn't feel like I'd be part of things.

And how things have changed because just a few months ago, I was in the grocery store and I was buying something and then, you know, there was a Superman comic in the store opposite and it was a comic book store and I walked past and I saw the comic and I just realized, you know, Today, I could actually be Superman.

I could legit be a Superman in America and I would be accepted.

In fact, people would celebrate me because I'm Indian and I'm different.

Today, we celebrate our differences rather than celebrate our similarities.

Obviously, there would still be hate.