1984, a Pan Shop, and a Name I Didn’t Choose

I’m on my fifth pint of fresh beer — still sober enough to reflect, loud enough to feel.

I see the Gen Zs around me.

They’ve never known a world without the internet.

They’ve never seen a black-and-white TV.

They never had to bang on a set-top box to catch Doordarshan before bedtime.

But I did.

And in 1984, when I was in Class 3, the screen in my head changed forever.

That’s the year I realized I was different.

Not because I was bad at maths.

Not because I had a funny laugh. But because I was a Sikh.

At a tiny pan shop, I heard it for the first time — not as pride, but as blame.

“Sardaaro ne maara Indira Gandhi ko.”

It wasn’t said to me. But it landed on me.

I didn’t know what it meant politically.

But I knew what it meant socially: I was no longer just “me.”

I was a type. A group. A headline. A suspicion.