Remember the scene from the movie “Titanic”? The ship has hit the iceberg and taking-in water rapidly. Rose: Don’t you understand? The water is freezing and there aren’t enough boats. Not enough by half. Half the people on this ship are gonna die. Cal: Not the better half. Now re-imagine the scene such that the iceberg is […]
A hyphenated identity doesn’t mean we always get to play on both teams. As an Indian American, it is hard to escape the cacophony of diatribe for and against four more years of President Trump. Indian-Americans have traditionally affiliated themselves with Democrats but today their loyalties are split; two seminal events — the election of […]
I imagine us living on Broadway, both of us
She uptown, I downtown, I could take the train or the bus
And even if no train or bus would take me to her place,
there is at least a straight, known path to her space…
I sit down to write. Never really sure if I weave a story or if it’s the story that weaves me It is creative some days but agonizing in many ways Some agonies just agonies of the art but others are peculiar to my heart. They say good stories come from heart’s deepest recesses whence […]
When she died, I thought I had an ocean in my eyes an ocean that would never dry up no matter how many salty tears it cries. Years passed. The wound sealed. Somehow I lived. My innards steeled. Yesterday I cried again the ocean in my eyes spilled the taste of tears on my lips […]
“Mere desh ki dharti sona ugle, ugle hire moti, mere desh ki dharti”(“The soil of my country produces gold, produces diamonds and pearls, this soil of my land”)[1]” I remember watching the song from the film “Upkaar” by Manoj Kumar on TV when I was a child, growing up in India in the 80s. The hard-working farmer-hero carrying […]
In 2008, India appeared before the U.N. Human Rights Council as part of the Universal Periodic Review process, an important human rights procedure in which States review one another’s human rights records. The Human Rights Council explicitly called India’s attention to the suicides of Indian farmers as a human rights issue.India responded to questions about […]
It’s been almost 50 years since Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri gave India the slogan “Jai Jawaan, Jai Kisaan” (Hail to the Solider, Hail to the Farmer). The father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi famously said that “the soul of India lives in its villages”. Yet, today, every 30 minutes a farmer commits suicide. It […]
“मेरे देश की धरती सोना उगले, उगले हीरे मोती, मेरे देश की धरती”. जब भी भारतीय किसान के बारे में बात छिड़ती हैं, तो मन में यही चित्र उभरता है: एक आदर्ष किसान, एक परिवार- पत्नी, माँ, बाप, एक लड़का, एक लड़की, कम से कम एक जोड़ा बैल जिसे प्यार से किसान बुलाता है – […]
WE are “We The People”, “We The Voice”. We can reclaim our democracies, stand up for our rights, fight against the wrongs. It is true that too many of us are sometimes too weak, too oppressed, too young, too old, too tired, too busy. Yet, every time, one small voice says, “I shall not be […]
