I never hung out with a Sindhi boy in fear that I’d be covered in a sweater of his hair if our bodies just touched for a second. Lunch breaks at school were a game of quips: “If you’re caught with a Sindhi and a snake – befriend the snake.” “Do you know why Sindhis have such big nostrils? Because air is FREE.” The more familiar I became with these cultural stereotypes, the more deeply they settled within me. I have made peace with the Sindhis as the “kanjoos-makhichoos” stereotype. Not a single communal space, be it the dining table, the kitchen or the bed on which all the fathers played rummy was devoid of the mechanics of bookkeeping and accountancy. For me, being Sindhi was growing up in a household of Sunday lunches that alternated between the heavenly crunch of dal pakwan and the loud voices of my father or aunt or grandmother passionately discussing which shop in the market had the cheapest potatoes, that buying spices from wholesale was much more sensible than 100 gm packets, and borrowing money from a Sindhi lender was wiser than going to a bank, because they are all out to loot us – and we know our math better than any national institution. This is a new dimension to our Sindhi identity and one that I have tiptoed around, unwilling to be a part of this second-hand Partition grief. “Beta, do you know that Ramesh’s father used to sell carpets to make a living after the Partition?” I hmmm along knowing fully well that he’ll boast about the director being a Sindhi man. “Of course, you know that the director was Ramesh Sippy.” “Do you remember the 1975 blockbuster, Sholay?” my father asks me.
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