These are our first few days in Croatia. My husband and I have just relocated to Zagreb and we decide to introduce ourselves to the city that very weekend. We walk its cobbled streets and take in its Baroque styles. We bend with the roads and rise with the church steeples. Every once in a while we stop and smile. This is quite a charming city, we think when the first speed breakers surface.

The morning has made way for noon and as people flock out of the churches and into the cafes, we notice a number of stares being cast our way. We look around at the growing crowd and realize that in this sea of white we are the only ones adding colour.

Oh, o!

The stares follow us everywhere, but any fears we might have had melt away into the dying snow within minutes of our first conversations. The people here are warm and friendly. They eagerly point out the local specialities on the menus and maps. “Very good,” they assure us, their expressions tell us all there is to know on the subject. They ask us where we’re from; if we do yoga; and how we like their country. They smile, I realize, as much as they stare.

It’s after one such day, as we’re heading back to our apartment, that I notice a young man, with zealous frizzy hair, on a cycle. He is staring. And even though I look away, from the corner of my eye I can see him make his way towards us. 

He circles us once and breaks into a wild smile. “Namaste,” he shouts. I’m stunned, unsure if I’ve heard right. “Namaste!” he yells again, a little louder this time. Even though I want to reply, to thank him for shouting out that friendly, familiar word at us, all I can do is stare. And before I know it, he begins to pull away.