"Я не хочу с ними ехать!" - I don't want to go with them!

two weeks after the Black Monday, i guess it's too soon to assume that things have cooled down.

for the past two weeks, i made a "fashionable" decision to keep the hijab away for a while and surprise, surprise: i missed it. people have always been curious over the fact that how and why our heads don't feel hot when we wear the hijab. get this: caps are much worse. at some point i think my brain went hypoxic.

true, these past couple of weeks i have to admit that i feel more confident wandering around the city, both on the public transport and on foot without the classical hijab. nobody stares, people at shops seems more friendly, the policemen/women pretty much ignores you. (trust me, the militsiya's are EVERYWHERE nowadays. in the metro stations there are even announcements saying that if you see "suspicious" people, you should report it to the police immediately. one day i even saw policemen casually buying Kartoshka with guns hanging from their shoulders)

boy i miss being the attraction! (LOL.)

so today some friends and i decided to go to Arbatskaya for a weekend stroll. i thought yea what's the fuss.. if anything i'm not alone, my friends will be there with me so i thought it'd be okay to wear the hijab. and the hijab, i wore.

i contemplated taking the Red Line at first, but then compared to the Orange Line it is more convenient to get to Arbatskaya from my flat in Konkova so we took the Red Line.

the train stopped at Park Kultury (site of the "Ter-Act", as Russians call it) when a a young lady, and a few others stepped into the wagon. a man suddenly grabbed the girl's hand, pulling her out of the train while shouting:

"я не хочу с ними ехать! я не хочу с ними ехать! я не хочу с ними ехать!"
(I don't want to go with them! I don't want to go with them! I don't want to go with them!)

as if pointing his index finger towards us wasn't enough to show his anger and disgust, he then used his middle finder.

the train door finally shut, but in the loudness of the sound that the train made, i could very well still hear his shouts.

the feeling: indescribably humiliating.

you know, the saddest thing about what happened is that normally you can afford to be angry at people who humiliate you IN PUBLIC. but in this case, you just can't. it doesn't seem quite fair, for some reasons. i am in no way related to the terrorists, but for all I know, that man might've lost someone he loved in the Park Kultury blast. and one thing i know about grievance is that it makes you feel better when you can put a blame on something, or someone.

these days trust is a rare thing. the only mutual thing is fear.

we all have the right to fear. during this hard times, i realized that we can't really blame them for being judgmental and full of suspicion. a day after the blast, i went into the train and saw a Muslim lady, a hijabi to be exact, sitting in the wagon. the seat next to her was ample. i was still wearing my hijab that day. usually here when Muslims see each other we'd at least smile and mouthed the words "assalamualaikum", but guess what. since the incident, the distrust is not only inter-religious, but also interpersonal.

i sat next to the Hijabi. we didn't look at each other directly, but only with the corner of our eyes. i was thinking "what if she has a bomb?" and i think she might have been thinking just exactly the same thing.

what has the world come to?

I can only pray for strength, and endurance. for at least a few more months.

:|