One of the saddest realities of the journalistic media is that in the midst of political snafu, people tend to ignore the most impoverished sections of our society. It is an absolute shame that this article went from being a could-have-been The Hindu op-ed to a satire piece. But anyways, here I document my life as a student without a document. I for one cannot believe that those CAA-whatever folks get more media attention than this struggling soul.
Just the other day I was utilising the RH04 cross access to meet my friend, with whom I wished to have the great pleasure of playing UNO. I had walked aaaaalllll the way from the heavily bordered, politically polarised, hyper-religiously dogmatising territory of RH03! I personally went through the gruelling struggles of packing all my belongings and whatnot in a sack of cloth attached to the end of a stick over my shoulder, labouring away as I walked along. Oh, and painstakingly carried the collective trauma of the land I once called home.
I didn’t know if this day would be my last, until I ordered chicken nuggets at the Nescafé booth on my way. I wiped the dripping sweat off my forehead with a cute pineapple-patterned napkin I bought from the dorm olympics stall, which effectively cost half my generational wealth (my mother had forgotten Gpay me with my pocket money for this month). Nevertheless, I had hope. Refuge at last! I WILL HAVE MY GAME OF UNO! But little did I know, life pulled out a sneaky little reverse card on me.
The guard didis were lined up in front of me as I entered the gates of what I thought was my last resort. They were, of course, heavily armed with AK-47s and wore full-camo military attire. I was nearing the end of my journey, and my chicken nuggets. I slowly gulped down the last morsel of whatever unfortunate chicken that nugget was made of, and tried to make it past the didis. BUT... but… it turned out I was not an eligible candidate for a new haven, where I could play all the UNO I could without any discrimination — a game strictly prohibited in the Orwellian nightmare that was RH03.
One of the didis pinned me down with her rifle and told me to show my identity. My Identity! Hum Kaagaz nahi dikha sakhte (I can’t show the paper ratifying my identity) — I had been declared an invalid. They let the RH01 folks enter without any hesitation because of their sexy little passes which deemed them as a non-threat to the ‘sovereignty of the RH04 republic’. But not me. I was kicked out by force, my family belongings (chacha’s iPhone 12) were ransacked, and I had nowhere else to go. I mean, until I realised the Nescafé was still serving those chicken nuggets (come to think of it, those things are pretty addictive for some reason).
Now I had to return to becoming a nobody in the tyrannical jurisdiction of RH03. My god, it's still an atrocious place – I had to travel all the way to the top floor to do my laundry! I don’t know how I can ever live in a terrifying place like that again, with no one to play UNO with. I came back to the ruins of my dorm, which was still reeking of ethnic discrimination… and socks which I refuse to laundry upstairs, because I can’t be told what to do – damn it.
I laid face-down on my bed, and wept for my life. When will this suffering end? What will be my future? Why would they do this to me? But right then, I noticed a single little rectangular thingamajing on lying on the floor. Fuck, never mind that’s my I.D. card — I guess it’s time to play UNO now.
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