Chameleon

Chameleon

Coming to a foreign country and being yourself is not easy. Suddenly you stand between two cultures. You feel different, like you don’t belong. You are trying hard to be like them, but can you escape from who you are? Rita Patel, 24-year old woman, is one out of many immigrants who lives in London. She is Indian. The reason why her family is living in London is because her father came to London to work. He wanted to turn back to India, but he couldn’t; he met Rita’s mother and Rita was born. She also has a younger sister Seema and a brother Raju. Rita is a hardworking woman and had rented the house in Finchley with her catholic boyfriend Mark, so they could be alone. No Catholics, no Indians – it was wonderful. Rita has always felt like white and wanted to be like white ones. She listen to white music, ware white clothes, eat white food and every morning she rubs bleaching cream into every exposed part of her skin, but can the bleaching cream cover who she really is? She taught it could, until Mark’s mother refused to talk to him, because she found out that his girlfriend wasn’t catholic. Rita couldn’t understand it, because she has lots of white friends, and has always felt welcome in their houses. She also feels very well integrated and therefore it came as a shock to her, that somebody couldn’t accept her as she was. Then it hit her – I was fine as the token dark friend. The parents of her white friends don’t mind her as a friend of their sons, but when it comes to marriage it’s a whole different matter. The reason why she was welcome as their friend is because then the white parents have a clear continence, and no one can call them racists. Rita’s family is very old-fashioned. They only have Indian friends and don’t socialize with locals or anybody, but Indians for that matter. They want Rita to get married to a non-Indian man. They don’t think that a white boy will treat her right. They only want one thing, these white men, they won’t stay with...