Kick me, I am Indian.

Indian students in Australia are being targetted. What used to be a rare inscident is too common these days that not a single Indian in Australia is spared. It is high time somebody does something about this. Yes, I am refering to the issue that is actually going unnoticed. The issue of every human being who is even remotely related to an Indian who has a 4th cousin working in a call centre that is only based in Australia being asked the same type of questions,' How bad is racism there?'and 'Was that you getting beaten up on Youtube ?'.

'We shall stop all trains to Australia', suggests ex Railway employee. 'But granpa, we don't have any trains to Australia!', exclaims 5 year old grandson who spends most of his play time productively socializing on Orkut. 'Glad they already thought about it!', replies granpa who is convinced that he got his job at the Indian Railways after his mentor got him a 'lucky stone' ring after carefully analizing his stars. Things seemed to come grandpa's way ever since until he was killed in a car accident. Things did come his way this time because he was on the wrong side of the road.

'It is a serious issue and requires serious attention', says veteran tea shop owner who is an active member of the Malayali Tea Shop Owners Association. He was one among the noble few who thought humans are broadly classified into two categories: Malayalis and Non-Malayalis. The tea shops in India are common places where people condemn racism in Australia.

The Australian government had tried its best to limit the incidents to 'assault on individuals', but that is not what we want to see on the news. News is interesting when it is tragedy somewhere. The more tragic it is, the more we like it on TV. It sold like hot cakes, errr ... or maybe like hot paav baajis ( that's more Indian) when the media used the word 'racism'. Oh, we loved it after that.

Was it really an act of racism? or was it an incident where the victims happened to be Indians and the media has blown the issue out of proportion ? Whatever it is it certainly has united a nation that is well divided within itself on grounds of race, cast, religion and whatever the wonderful human mind could think of.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. But these protests, that are done with an intention of 'protecting' the interests of Indian students abroad can trigger a cascade of events that will only be seen through racist eyes. Now that it has already begun time will tell what lies ahead.