Disgruntled in DelhiYANN, a 31-year-old student from Kinshasa, does not wish to be seen speaking with a white foreigner. He fears attracting crowds of Indians, angered at the prospect that he might be complaining about India (he worries that similar, perhaps even angrier, crowds would appear if he were seen speaking to an Indian woman). He lives in one of the crowded villages that sprawl south through India’s capital, and the drive back to his windowless one-room flat happens to wind down Nelson Mandela Marg and cross Africa Avenue, official names given in a spirit of post-colonial camaraderie. Also on the way he passes the brick-strewn gully where an acquaintance, another Congolese named Masonga Kitanda Olivier, was beaten to death by three Indian men on May 20th.
Yann came to India three years ago to study IT networks. “On my second day here,” he says, “that’s when I realised, ‘I am black.’” People laughed at him, and called him “kalu” (“blackie”). Children point at him and treat him like a monster. Officials are no better: when he brought his documents to the...Continue reading
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