I hate Ottawa, Amina Samundri thought to herself as she walked out of the MacDonald's restaurant where she'd worked for the past year. Today was the last straw and the young Indian woman knew it deep in her bones. After one too many arguments with her racist manager Anne Tremblay, Amina got in the plump old French Canadian woman's face and told her exactly how she felt about her.
"Bitch, you can take this job and shove it," Amina said, hands on her hips, as Anne Tremblay looked on, shocked. The old broad looked stunned, and Amina took deep satisfaction in that. With that, Amina took off her hairnet, and threw her apron in the air, and then walked out of the grimy MacDonald's located in the east end of Ottawa, never to return.
Amina Samundri walked to her place in Vanier, two kilometers from the fast food restaurant where she worked. It was just starting to snow, one cold Friday in mid-November, and this suited Amina just fine. As far as she was concerned, the cold weather matched the mindset of the people she worked with. Polite to your face and hostile behind your back, passive-aggressive like only a Canadian can be.
Amina shook her head, stifled a groan, and smiled. The look on the MacDonald's patrons faces as Amina stormed out was absolutely priceless. "Fuck you bozos," Amina said loudly as she exited the place. The fact that these creeps thought they were better than her simply because she was a brown gal with an accent infuriated Amina to no end.
From the moment Amina Samundri set foot in the City of Ottawa, Ontario, the young woman wondered whether coming to this place was the right decision. Born in the City of Ahmednagar, western India, to an Iranian Muslim mother, Halima Rouhani, and a Sikh Indian father, Omar Samundri, who later embraced Islam, Amina was definitely no stranger to hardship.
In the Republic of India, where the simmering tension between the growing Muslim minority and the ill-at-ease Hindu majority was always on the brink of breaking out, a Sikh man's conversion to Islam was viewed as a bad omen. Amina's father was ostracized by his family after he decided to embrace Islam and marry the Persian Muslim woman he'd fallen in love with while studying at the American University of India in the City of Kodaikanal.
Growing up in a town where people looked at her family funny because of their racial and religious differences, Amina Samundri was no stranger to persecution and mistreatment. Many Indians viewed the Muslims as troublemakers, and given the history of Persian and Arab invasions in India, Amina's mother, Halima Rouhani-Samundri wasn't well-received in Indian society, even though she was very beautiful, highly educated and wealthy.
"Why do they hate us Baba?" Amina once asked her father, on a Friday evening, as father and daughter walked to the marketplace after evening prayers at the Damri Masjid, the venerable old mosque that had been at the heart of Ahmednagar's Muslim community for centuries.
"Allah made all of us, regardless of faith or color, so we Muslims mustn't hate these savages for their prejudice and ignorance," Omar Samundri said evenly, smiling at his moon-faced daughter. Amina smiled back at her father, and nodded, although she didn't understand.
Earlier that day, one of Amina's classmates, little Ajay, taunted her for wearing the Hijab, and called her a bad word. Upset, Amina reported Ajay's actions to the teacher, Miss Richa, but the Punjabi lady did nothing. It was Amina's first encounter with discrimination, but it would definitely not be the last.
More than a decade later, twenty-one-year-old Amina Samundri was an international student at the University of Ottawa, studying civil engineering. And the only job she could get in the Capital, after painstakingly obtaining a work permit and a social insurance card, was working as a cashier at MacDonald's. Ah, the sheer indignity of it.
Amina went home, and hastily stepped out of the blue jeans and black pullover sweater she had on. Stepping into the shower, Amina remained there for a good fifteen minutes. Closing her eyes while lathering her curvy body with soap, soaking up the warm water, Amina wished she could wash away the things that had happened to her. Sadly, fate had other plans...
Half an hour later, Amina sat in the living room, clad in a tank top and dark blue sweatpants, her long black hair pulled into a bun. Lying comfortably on the couch, Amina watched her favorite movie, Une Autre Vie, a French film revolving around the relationship between Jean, a working-class black male living in France, and Dawn, the white female pianist who falls in love with him.
A knock at the door startled the young woman from her thoughts. Groaning in frustration, Amina went to the door. After the day she'd had, she was definitely not in the mood to chat with any of her roommates. "What the fuck do you want?" Amina said, as she swung the door open.
"As Salam Alaikum sister," a deep, masculine voice said warmly. Amina's eyes widened in shock when she realized who her visitor was. Aziz Toure, the tall, dark and handsome Senegalese guy whom she met on the weekend shift at MacDonald's. What in hell was he doing there?
"Hope I'm not intruding, your landlord let me in," Aziz said, smiling warmly. Amina blinked, and then stepped aside to let him in. She and Aziz had known each other for a while. For starters, they were both techies and international students. Aziz was studying electrical engineering at Carleton University, and was a newcomer to Canada by way of Gossas, western Senegal.
"Come right in mon ami," Amina said cheerfully, more pleased than perplexed by Aziz's impromptu visit. She sat the tall West African stud down in her living room, and had a good look at him. Clad in a blue silk shirt, black silk pants and black Timberland boots, Aziz looked pretty dapper.
