How do we honor the life of a man who did the hardest work of all – his refusal to dehumanize his opponent, when many of us, may I dare say, most of us, at this very moment are dehumanizing someone in our own hearts; someone we don’t agree with, someone whose lifestyle we cannot stand, someone whose politics we abhor.
HOPE IS AN ACT OF DEFIANCE. DEFY WITH US.
“Delhi Burning” screamed the headlines of a major newspaper. It was November 2nd 1984, and riots plagued Delhi, after the then Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her own Sikh bodyguards. When the news of her assassination broke, mobs of Hindus filled with rage took to the streets in Delhi, seeking vengeance & killing any Sikhs they came across. Two days after her death, most areas of my city were under total curfew as the flames of communal fire erupted in neighborhood after neighborhood.
We make this journey of life looking for a home – which actually appears to me is the place where we are loved – fully, wholeheartedly, just as we are. It doesn’t mean we don’t do the work – because finding home or love requires “home-work”. As Kahlil Gibran said “When love beckons to you follow him, though his ways are hard and steep.”
I have never remembered my mother as much as I have in the past couple of years, nor have I missed her as much, nor have I channeled her as much.
“How on earth are we going to find any men if we never go on any dates?”
“The doorbell will ring, we will open the door and there they will be…”
My sister responded to my frustrated question with a grin, the gorgeous dimples on her cheeks deepening, her arm dramatically making the wide gesture of opening a door. She winked at me and added in her usual know-it-all attitude “….when the time is right.”
“Of course!” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Go back to your f***ing country” — the words hit me like ice-cold water. I stared unblinkingly at the speaker, unable to process the words directed at me. My face still wore the awkward smile it had when I had rolled down my window to better understand what the passengers in the car next to mine […]
“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 […]
