Brown About Town with Suma Iyer
White people are too scared to ask me where I’m from. Brown people have no such fear.
If I get in an Uber with a brown person behind the wheel… there will be the first moment after slumping into the passenger’s seat where we just look at each other.
The subcontinental standoff has begun; who will ask first.
It’s like playing chicken, but we’re both in the same car. And nobody’s driving. We’re just channelling all our psychic energy into making the other person uncomfortable.
Often, it’s the Uber driver who blinks first because they think, “We could switch places, and this would still make sense. I’m driving you to the airport in a Toyota Camry, but you could just as easily be driving me to the airport in a Toyota Camry.”
And this, of course, is very true.
They are trying to achieve grounding. “I need to place you in the Brown Universe. What is your deal? Where are you from?”
And, like, if they asked and I said “Wollongong”—which would be appropriate as I am from Wollongong—that would NOT be okay. Whilst true, it’d be a smarmy answer to a question with a subtext I was well and truly steeled for.
If they asked where I was from, even if I said “Wollongong” like that, it would be like I said, “I’ve really enjoyed assimilating into Australian culture; how come you’ve done such a bad job of it?” Like I would be breaking the Brown Covenant of Realness.
Which I break all the time, anyway. Sometimes, I will ask my ferryman where they hail from first just so I can lie based on their answer. The truth is, I don’t speak any Indian language, but I don’t want them to know that.
So, if they say, “I’m from Delhi! Do you speak Hindi?” I’ll just pick somewhere at the opposite end of the country with a different language.
“No, sorry… my Dad is a Tamil.”
Thus safely establishing a lack of commonality on that score, swiftly followed by a moment of “too bad, so sad” before we talk about cricket.
Now, don’t worry. It’s not bad for brown people to lie to each other. It’s important.
If a lady in a sari and sneakers asks me what I did at the weekend, the worst thing I could do for both of us in that interaction is tell her the unvarnished truth. She doesn’t need to know about eating McDonald’s in the car at 11pm or drinking half a bottle of wine during Ru Paul’s Drag Race.
It would be excellent for brown folks to be able to lie to people when they can’t tell us apart. I was waiting at a restaurant to pay for what I’d just eaten when the man behind the counter handed me a couple of Uber Eats bags.
He’d mistaken me for a delivery driver.
Of all the stereotypes in all the take-away joints, he had to play into this one. He seemed the type of person who would have been far too scared to ask where I was REALLY from. Not that it would have done him much good, given his trouble telling me apart from other brown people. He would have been mortified if I’d pointed out what she had done.
I did the only thing that felt right. I respected the woman’s dignity and mine by getting into my Toyota Camry and eating the shit out of that burger-fries combo.
Suma Iyer is a Canberra-based comic. You can keep up with her shenanigans over at @sumaiyercomedy. Suma will be on the bill for this months Gang Gang Comedy on Wed 22 May!!!