Many children repeated that first question and I spent my early schooling years refuting them, entering into fights, losing friends through angry arguments as I continued to insist that India was my country. But you don't look like a Muslim. And they stared at me as if I was an alien from outer space as I did not fit in with the popular and deliberately created perception of a Muslim girl in either a burkha or in clothes that fitted in with the stereotype. It is this stereotype that has been created and used very skilfully to feed suspicion and hostility. The Muslim has big families because he wants to increase his number.
Statistics show otherwise.
The Muslim is dirty. No one stops to even examine if this is true, it is accepted as the truth. The Muslim supports Pakistan during an India-Pakistan cricket match. If a non-Muslim praises icon Imran Khan it is taken as a sign of liberal and independent thinking. If a Muslim says the same he becomes communal and pro-Pakistan.