since 2014 i have been continuously residing abroad and now i am what some people describe as a non resident indian living abroad one naturally misses ones motherland and i too constantly yearn to live in my country of origin close to my family the other day i was invited to my friends raksha bandhan party we are a small group of indian families in a vast white belt area at the party i was involved in a discussion of sorts with a couple of my friends about the topic of racism a few of my friends claim they have experienced stereotypical comments about their particular culture some have experienced open bias and have been passed over for promotions at their companies while some are more open minded and accept that living abroad will always entail some bitter experience or the other which people may call racism however my own personal experience with the concept of bias or racism is a bit muddled as i work in retail and work with clients from all walks of life while helping one of the customers who was from my own native country i sort of became friendly with him as the customer insisted i speak to him in hindi and he took my personal phone number as he said he was also new to the country and wanted to meet new people and make connections from his own community naturally after i helped him i went about my day in usual fashion and got immersed in my work once i reached home he called me again to ask me what the status of his insurance policy was as i work in insurance this when i had categorically told him it would take me a day or two to process a quote for him when i repeated the same to him he sort of lost it and accused me of making false promises that i could not deliver and after swearing at me disconnected the phone call shocking as it was when i reached office the next day i found the same customer had complained about me to my manager saying that i did not know how to do my job and that i needed to learn english and required better training as he apparently could not understand a word i said to him in english my manager took me into her office after the customer left calmed me down and asked me to forget about the experience as people she said are people who tend to be difficult without any reason now if i look at this experience from the point of view of racism the person who complained about me was from the same race as mine however had the customer been a native local white person a lot of people me included would be quick to judge the person as racisthence to sum it up im unsure as to what racism really is however what i did learn