A Question of Discrimination

I keep telling myself it's no one's fault,

just a roll of the dice decides my fate,

I did not get to choose my family, 

this skin I'm in, just "a little brown guy,"

at least to my ex-wife who kept our name,

the last name obtained by my ancestor

through marriage or the colonial sword,

the history is vague, details obscure,

the genealogy from foreign lands,

South Asia, a sub-continent far off,

Bombay, where I was born, yet to return,

after forty-five years, how to explain,

the confusion of my doppelgänger,

who never left our shared homeland, I see

my imaginary twin self forlorn,

abandoned to fortune, with his people

to fend for himself in the land of spice,

and I wonder if he should fare better

than if my parents brought him to London

at 3 months, then to Kew Gardens 3 years

later, then to leave New York forever, 

move to Huntington Beach, California

at the age of 5 and try to fit in,

to be asked by every adult and child, 

"Where are you from?" as innocuously

as mentioning what a beautiful day

we're having here, this side of paradise,

but he never realised the straight arm

that inquiry would keep him from others,

at arm's length, if not further still, the fear

of loving a stranger, others could feel

this xenophobic sentiment and plant

this seed in the bewildered mind my twin

would face in the mirror every morning,

why his family was so different,

he could not embrace our lost traditions,

he would encounter the flavors the food 

my mother made for our dinner each night

with curry and spices from her childhood

in Goa, and it was my mom who gave

me the name Rui Carlos da Cunha,

which I mispronounce even to this day

as an American, naturalized,

a citizen not native-born, and thus,

never to grow up to be President,

as my classmates teased me, as little kids

unwittingly enjoy Schadenfreude,

as do adults who don't test little boys

as foreigners for their Cub Scouts' badges

or perhaps, it was I who was too shy

to speak up as a child, tortured by Page,

the son of one of the two Scout Masters,

who took great satisfaction in twisting

the ear of anyone within arm's reach,

even if my twin would make many friends

the failure to make sense of the dice throw

always begged the question of inquiry 

from innocent children and blind adults, 

"Where are you from?" Curiosity kills!