London the Melting Pot

The first movie I went to see in London was a Punjabi movie. I don't know Panjabi, and the Pakistani-Punjabi students next to me took me there, painstakingly translating the movie to me as I sat next to them. I would have never expected this! In London!

It's fascinating to eat Turkish food made by Turkish people on weekends, getting a haircut at a barbershop owned by a Gujrati. To buy books from an Algerian at a reduced price. And to be taught by professors who are English, Italian, Iranian, Newzelandian and my classmates come from all around the world.

This is the absolute beauty of London, or perhaps colonialism. Whichever is the case, its certainly fascinating hearing 10–20 different languages on a single day and be humbled by the multicultural experience this city has to offer

I never felt home, even in my hometown, where I felt like an alien, to be honest and I looked for that feeling of home everywhere I went. I didn’t feel at home in any cities I have been to be it Dhaka, Berlin, Seattle, Chicago, Amsterdam, Kathmandu, Kolkata, Paris, but here I actually feel at home, to be honest for the first time in my life. And as fate would have it I find myself at home among misfits.

Not fitting in when no one is fitting in is a brilliant experience, it feels a bit like you finally feel at home.

Now with the rhetoric that Priti Patel and her gangs are coming up within the parliament, it feels like London might not remain the same for long. Already signs are visible, people have become increasingly mistrusting. I have been yelled Racist threats twice now, it's been a month in London. So far it has not affected me because in my travels I have heard these before, and I am slowly building up a defensive statement. Going to call them out on colonialism…lets see.

So far the people have run away after a racist comment and when confronted the next day apologized, but the way racist policies work, and racist speeches work is that they will feel more at home using racist statements.