Sticks and Stones and Such Like

Sticks and Stones and Such-like is a story that explains how an innocent indian boy doesn’t fit into socity because of his name, Sunil. I was able to relate the story a bit as my mum and family had a bit of the same problem when they moved to Australia. It is interesting to see Sunil ashamed of his name for majority of the story and how his mother’s influence helped find his belonging.

Sunil begins his story with names he would be called just because of his race, for instance curry muncher, towel-head,darkie and nig-nog. It would then be followed up with a “Chinese burn or a dead-leg.” Sunil had everything going against him, he was indian and had dark skin and he had an Indian name which people would bag him about because they couldn’t pronounce it. This shows us that the group of people at that time were extremely racist and that it would of been very hard for Sunil to fit in, which led him to change his name to Neil.

Neil found a false sense of belonging with his name change. Good on him for doing it, as this stopped majority of people making fun of his name and as he said, “I could feel their approval at the effort I was making to fit in.” To be honest, I believe most people that would of been in this situation may have done the same thing, as us Aussie’s can be really harsh to people with different names or colour of skin.

After Kieran blowing Sunil’s cover name, his mother gave a a nice long lecture as to what his name really meant. I can imagine my uncle or aunty doing this in their accents, and as Sunil felt, it is not a good place to be or the postion they put you in. Curry parents are not people to mess with when your on their bad side. But it’s good to see the influence his mum’s lecture had on Sunil’s life and the courage that she put in him to be proud of his name. As we grow up, the influence our family has on our life is massive and it doesn’t surprise me how Sunil reacted. I believe it’s important that if you have a “different” name, to take