Its a never ending battle. It’s not even a battle actually for it never makes you extremely scared, not for your life, not anything else. It just suffocates you. It’s so difficult to know things expecially about yourself. Other people can tell you about themselves but who is gonna tell you about yourself? What do you want to be in life? Why is it even necessary to be something? For money? For passion?
Who knows and honestly no one cares. It’s actually crazy to me how our interests keep changing over time.
Remember deciding your profession solely based on the last movie you watched? If you loved the movie, then, for sure you wanted to take up whatever profession the lead character was in.
You realise your skills by the time you reach High School and then leave behind your fancy dreams. Then comes the realisation of competition in this world and the pressure from your parents. That makes you drop some dreams. And finally, ‘money’, the most ‘important’ aspect of life. After all, what is the point of being in a profession, though your favourite, that doesn’t fill your stomach?
It’s almost like life gets narrower as you grow old. Fewer dreams, fewer friends, fewer expectations.
There is a funny part to all of this as well. You won’t find out till you actually step into it. If you think that you can decide what you want to be in life in a day by just sitting and thinking about it, you are wrong. You will have to pick up a path. It can even be the path that ‘Robert Frost’ did not take, but you must walk. You will feel like wasting your time or might actually enjoy it, but the point is, you won’t find out till you actually do one thing or the other.
It’s time taking for sure or euphemistically speaking, demands patience and is heavily dependent on the ‘Its never too late’ concept. And you know what, it’s extremely difficult to even try to end a piece of writing on a positive note when your soul itself is confused and still figuring things out. But, I am glad that atleast I am walking whether it is the right or the wrong path.
Feels like yesterday when we were six or seven. What prompted us to be friends is still a mystery to me. But, I don’t remember us being strangers either. We didn’t have checklists back then. No judgements, no rules, for who to be friends with.
It must’ve been your tasty lunch that bound us together or the agreement we signed to help eachother in exams, dripping with innocence but adhered to very sternly. What next? A simple handshake and boom, 15 years have passed.
Lately, I can’t help but think how different we are from eachother. Our field of study to pastime hobbies. Different personalities, different ways of looking at life. I have noticed that what interests me, causes you boredom. Without mentioning, we have started avoiding so many topics for the sake of saving quarrel. What was obscure a few years ago is very obvious now. How you will react in a particular situation, what would be your point of view on a certain matter. Both of us have become aware of our different social backgrounds and thus our unfortunately different positions in the society, which has ultimately decided out political leanings as well; that too different.
I keep wondering, whether I would’ve liked to be friends with you if I met you today? Now, at this age, when I pretty much understand myself, my interests; with the baggage of all my experiences till date, leading to subconscious judgements, would I have approached you? Would you have approached me?
I have distanced myself from so many people saying “our vibes don’t match”, when they very obviously share personalities with you. How did we manage to be so different from eachother when we were together almost all the time. It’s so strangely astonishing how the same soil and water begets different plants and the distinction becomes clearly visible when those plants bear their own flowers.
Still something keeps us together. It’s either the comfort, the memories or the fear of us knowing way too much about eachother. Then there is the gargantuan task of finding someone else like you, which I admit is quite impossible given the fact that I’m very lazy when it comes to striking a conversation. Perhaps if they also bring tasty lunch…..nah, nevermind.
Afterall, we don’t like 100 percent of the people we like, but we are willing to make adjustments for them; or we have already adjusted ourselves according to them without anyone of us knowing. Also, with each day passing we are getting older and busier and the time we spend together is getting shorter. That automatically leads to lesser differences and more efforts to cherish every moment we get to be together.
In 1917 the British government issued the Balfour declaration, promising the establishment of a national home in Palestine for Jewish people. A year back they had secretly promised the French that they would divide the Arab teritorries and that the Brits would keep Palestine. Going back another year the British had an agreement with the ruler of Mecca that he would rule Palestine if he led a revolt against the Ottomans, which he promptly did. All of this happened before the Ottomans were defeated in the First World War, which means that the Brits promised a land, which technically didn’t even belong to them, to three people including themselves.
Spanish and Portugal Empires in the 15th century. Pic credit: Google
There are several instances in history when a country has claimed a land which they were not inhabitants of. Hundereds of years ago, even before the rise of Britain, as a superpower, two countries were fighting to claim the lands which they newly discovered and one person tried to resolve this conflict by dividing the ‘New World’ between these two countries. It was the Pope. 15th century was marked by great expeditions
15th century was the beginning of the Age of Discoveries. Europe was finally out of the shadows of the crusades, into the Renaissance period, rediscovering it’s culture, art and philosophy. During this time two of the most powerful European empires, Portugal and Spain were taking the lead in discovering new sea routes to map the world. One of the reasons for so many voyages in the 15th century was out of curiosity to discover new lands or to ascertain the fact that the earth was round. But, another important reason was trade. With several stories from travellers like Marco Polo about huge amount of wealth in the east, western Europe was now trying to find a sea route round the African continent to reach Asia. Although trading between Europe and Asia wasn’t a new thing, but with Constantinople, Egypt and most of the Middle East under the Ottomans, the land route became pretty difficult.
So, the Portuguese tried to go east and Spain which was a Christian empire under King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile, went towards the west. A major victory for the Portuguese came in the year 1446 with the discovery of Cape Verde, which is an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and also the westernmost point of Africa. This was the discovery that made people believe that they would be able to reach India, if they were able to go round Africa.
Cabo Verde also called Cape Verde.
Portuguese and Spainiards were doing there separate voyages pretty smoothly, till 1493, when Christopher Columbus returned from his American exploration. He was a Italian explorer who wanted to find a route to the East Indies particularly the Spice Islands (Indonesian archipelago), through sailing west. He first went to King John II of Portugal to sponsor his voyage but the King refused him. Finally it were the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella who sponsored his voyage. Though Columbus did discover new land, or shall we say new for Europe, because the land was already inhabited by people, it wasn’t the East Indies which he intended to go to. He landed at Bahamas, one of the islands in the West Indies.
Upon his return, Portugal and Spain entered into conflict to claim the newly discovered land. King John II sent a threatening letter to the Spanish Monarchs, reminding them of the Treaty of Alcáçovas signed in 1479 that granted all lands south of the Canary Islands to Portugal. The Spanish Monarchs knew that they would not be able to match the Portuguese in terms of military power, so they found a diplomatic way out of this conflict. This is where the Pope comes into the scene.
Line of Demarcation (1493) and the new meridian after Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) Pic Credit: Google
The Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella reached Pope Alexander VI, who himself was of spanish descent, to issue a papal bull– a public decree– called Inter caetera. This bull granted all the lands west of a pole-to-pole line 100 leagues( about 300 miles) west of any of the islands of the Azores or the Cape Verde to Spain. This was called the Line of Demarcation. The bull did not mention anything of the Portugal lands, which made the Portuguese King quite unpleased. In order gain rights over the lands east to the Line of Demarcation the Portuguese King started negotiations with the Catholic Monarchs. Funnily enough, the next year, that is in 1494 the Treaty of Tordesillas was signed between Portugal and the Spanish Crown to move the Line of Demarcation 270 leagues west, without even consulting the Pope. It is bewildering to think that actual land, home to millions of people, was getting divided between two foreign empires like a piece of cake.
All these bulls issued by the Pope or the treaties signed between empires dividing the world might be just an interesting piece of history to ponder over now. But back in the day they were actually setting the stage for colonisation of these “undiscovered” lands.
Uff! It’s so depressing all around, they want me to bring in some “positive news” but is it really the lack of positivity and not compassion and empathy?
They want me to write about the raining sixes at boundaries, when people are dropping dead like flies
They want me to capture the holy dip at Ganga, when hundreds are gasping for breath at streets
They want me to talk about the wins and losses of the purported “festival of democracy” when crematoriums are announcing their own results
They want me to help them clean their timeline, when I know the next SOS call could be one of mine
They can keep their eyes shut through the day, but the crimson sky at midnight is enough to keep me awake
Perhaps late “human beings” wrapped in plastic bags are not aesthetic enough… But they were alive once unlike your moral conscience
Look around carefully, the times we are in even the shares on a call for help are signs of positivity whitewashing despair, censoring cries are mere distractions.
Picture of a crematorium in New Delhi, clicked by Danish Siddiqui
In 1993 Kevin Carter, a South African photojournalist, clicked a picture during Sudan famine, famously known as “The Vulture and the little girl”. In the picture a vulture is seen sitting near a child, who was on its way to a United Nations feeding center, but collapsed midway most probably due to acute starvation. This picture started a debate regarding the ethics of journalism and the humanitarian instincts of a journalist. People often quote the example of this picture to regard journalists as vulture feeding on people’s misery, grief, pain.
Something similar happened a few days ago when Reuters photojournalist Danish Siddiqui posted pictures on his twitter handle including a picture of a drone shot of a crematorium in Delhi where 50 funeral pyres were burning. India is going through a deadly second wave of Corona virus and the increasing death toll has caused an overflow of dead bodies at crematoriums. Some big twitter handles starting complaining that media is stirring distress and fear among people, at already distressing times, by showing pictures and footages from funeral grounds. Some people compared journalists to ‘vultures waiting for their prey to die’ while others went as far as alleging that media is trying to ‘undermine India’s image’ and ‘disrespecting hindu culture’.
The allegation of disrespecting hindu culture doesn’t hold much ground because there are several examples of news channels live broadcasting funerals of big politicians and bollywood actors, with nobody objecting to that. On the other hand the allegations of media undermining India’s image at world stage and comparing media coverage in India to media coverage in foreign countries to claim that the foreign press didn’t cover deaths and burial grounds in US and UK during the first wave of Corona virus last year, is just a blatant lie. From Washington Post to BBC to The New York Times, almost all big news organisations covered the horrific scenes of mass digging of graves and coffin makers struggling to meet up the demand for coffins, in US, UK, France, Italy.
Now as far as the vital question of ‘what is the need to cover crematoriums’ is concerned, we need to understand a few things. First of all, the real picture is always at ground zero. Many Indian newspapers have reported huge discrepancies between the official Covid–19 death toll and the number of dead bodies being laid to rest as per Covid protocols. For example an Indian Express report states that from April 16 to April 20 the official data for Madhya Pradesh recorded only 348 deaths, when three cremation facilities in Bhopal alone reported 597 bodies being buried following Covid-19 protocols. This is the case across several other states in India including the national capital Delhi. To understand the gravity of the situation it is necessary to highlight these discrepancies and the most effective way of doing so is reporting straight from crematoriums.
Any humanitarian crises often becomes just a case study due the official figures which maybe useful for future references. What brings life to these figures and makes us understand that the zeroes that keep getting added every few days in the death toll actually represent someone’s mother, father, son, daughter, husband, or friend, are actually these pictures and articles that the journalists experience firsthand.
Anupam Nath, an Associated Press photojournalist, replying to a query from Newslaundry said, “We should record for history. If no one had taken photos of the Hiroshima bombing, we would not have realised how bad it was. You can’t visualise until you see the situation.”
The situation certainly is very distressing right now. But it is important to report the truth now to avoid an even worse situation in future.
It’s her third letter in a week The cries are getting louder, I’m scared to have a peek. I can see the letters bold behind drops of tears, They are mine they are hers, they stink of fear. Every now and then she reaches out her hand, Wanting to be pulled out before meeting the dead-end. The numbness has started to fill in her body Is it a graveyard? Is she a dead body?
I’m trying to remember when did it started Did I ignored, joked around or sincerely responded? But I’m fine, neither dead nor dying, About to grab her hand only to find a thousand chains tying. How do I break it how does it shatter Who is dragging me down, is it me, is it her? I realised, even her stillness is better than my vehemence Breathes make you drown, corpses just float seamless.
But it’s not the final call yet I am here till the sun sets. Whatever it takes to break the chains, My fatigue should not put her efforts in vain. Till the letters stop bringing in cries I’m using my breath to keep her alive.
It was past 6 in the evening. I was returning home from college, riding pillion with my sister. Although my college gets over at 4pm already, I had to stay at my sister’s office for nearly 2 hours because apparently she suddenly got reminded of some important work that she had to finish before we could head home. After spending almost two hours with a poor WiFi I wasn’t certainly in a good mood but now that we were finally heading back home, I felt more relaxed. But, as we were moving, suddenly we had to stop and everyone around us had to stop too. The traffic light had just turned red.
Anytime after 5pm is basically people just rushing back to their homes after a day that can for one reason or another be deemed as stressful. I could see the irritated expression on everyone’s faces and feel the frustration in the air as the clock on the traffic light started counting backwards from 180 seconds. Amidst the same stressed, drained out of energy expression on almost everyone’s faces my eyes certainly stuck at one particular scene.
Besides us two bikes were standing, one in front of the other, and beside those bikes was a car. However what caught my attention was not the car but the people inside the car. There were two boys on the front seat and a girl and a boy on the backseat. They looked like college students almost the same age as me. The boys were all wearing suits. The girl was wearing a black dress. Black hair, a little longer than shoulder length. Although I could not see her face clearly, I just felt she might be pretty. However what stood out to me were her earrings. They did not match with her dress at all. To be precise she was wearing jhumka, one that someone would wear with a saree or salwar kurta. Their attires brought me to the conclusion that they were either returning from their freshers or farewell party. I was not able to see the boy’s face who was sitting with the girl. I could see the girl’s hair. They were facing eachother. Probably kissing.
Suddenly the girl backed off. She got a call. At the same time there was a knock on their car’s window. It was a beggar, with an empty bowl, trying to make a living out of the red traffic light. The girl rolled down the window, with her phone pressed to her ear with one hand, she answered the call, “hmm papa“. While trying to get some money out of her purse she answered again, “abhi college pe hi hai friends se mil le thoda tab nikalte hai” (still at the college, let me meet my friends then we’ll leave)
With a little bit confused face, as if trying to figure out what the other person was about to say, she said again, “abhi to Shrishti ke yaha jana hai. Usko kuch important kaam hai phir 8 baje tak pakka ghar. Wo apni car se chhod degi.” (Have to go to Shrishti’s place. She got some important work. Then I will be home by 8pm, promise. She will drop me home in her car)
“Ok. Bye. Love you.”
She cut the call. Gave a coin to the beggar. The boys who were sitting quietly till now, finally started speaking again. The one on the driver’s seat said something that made all of them laugh. The girl rolled up the window again with a little smile on her face.
She was most probably lying to her dad. Because the four lane intersection was definitely not her college. For a second I was taken back to my freshers party. Almost all of my classmates went to a club after the official college party was over, to have fun on their own. I didn’t. More like I couldn’t. I wanted to but for ‘some’ reasons which can qualify as ‘precautions to stay safe’, I couldn’t.
The uncle, sitting on his bike right beside us side eyed them. He was probably frowning, probably thinking,”what has happened to this generation?”
Suddenly the car started moving. Engines were on again. All the vehicles started moving. Countdown was over, the traffic light was green. The car was going straight while we had to turn right. As far as I could, my eyes followed the car, or to be honest, the girl. The last thing I saw was that, she was laughing. I don’t know the reason, but she had the most genuine laugh on her face. My heart felt happy.
Wherever she went after that, I just hope she returned home by 8pm, with the same genuine laugh on her face.
When I was in twelfth standard, we were taught a poem at school, ‘My mother at sixty six’, by Kamala Das. The poem is about the fears of the poet, which she felt looking at her mother’s dull and pale face. The sudden realisation that her mother has grown old, and will not be with her forever, makes the poet a bit uncomfortable.
When I first read the poem, it was just another chapter of the syllabus which I had to study to score good marks in the exams. But, today, something happened that made me realise a lot of things. I saw my father holding a glass of water. His hands were trembling. And all of a sudden I could picturize not just the set up in which My mother at sixty six was written, but also the pain the poet must have felt while writing it.
Do you know what causes shaky hands, especially at an older age? I, unfortunately know. Sometimes, it’s easier to move on if you don’t know certain things, and I wish I didn’t knew. That strange feeling when you start hesitating to call your dad to pick you up, because you know it might not be good for their health. When you know, your mom isn’t making you do certain things because she wants to teach you, but simply because she just cannot do it on her own. When your parents falling sick is not just a random excuse to take leave from college or work, but actually makes you feel scared. It’s sad. It’s annoying. I don’t know any other words to describe this feeling or maybe I just don’t want to use harsher or more realistic terms.
Sometimes I think I’m feeling this way only because I don’t want to take responsibilities. Maybe I just want it going the same way it was. Living a carefree life, under the shelter of my parents, just how my childhood was. But it’s not totally correct. I am okay being the responsible child but, I still want someone to hold my back. Someone to correct me, to scold me.
What is even weird is that, the only thing that makes you feel a bit relaxed from these feelings is the thought that you too will go through this phase. Just a few more years, and you will be in your parents shoes and your children in yours. This is how it has always been.
Kamala Das in the poem tried to distract herself from these thoughts by looking at young trees. I will try that too. Young trees, young saplings, new buds, new flowers, another dawn , another day.
It has been more than two weeks since farmers are protesting against the new farm laws. Several rounds of talks have happened between the farmer leaders and the central leadership but to no avail, as the farmers don’t want to settle for anything less than the repeal of three farm laws. Amid these protests several pictures have emerged from the protest site at Singhu border, one of them being of pizza being served to the protesting farmers and other one of foot massagers at the protesting site.
Many people appeared to have not taken these pictures positively and started trolling the protesting farmers. Farmers, in our country are stereotyped with a certain image. When a video of Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu surfaced on social media in which he was seen talking to a policeman in english, there were several nasty comments about it. Twitter was filled with comments like, “Is he really a farmer?”, “How can a farmer speak in english?”. While Deep Sidhu is not a farmer, but there are many farmers in Punjab who are well educated, graduates and can easily converse in english. The fact that we are so used to seeing farmers as some uneducated, skinny, old man, in maybe a lungi, with a gamchha around his neck, that any farmer being even a little bit different from the usual type, seems less genuine to us, is actually concerning. While most farmers in India can actually be the same as the one described above, but discrediting others because they don’t fit our criteria just shows our ignorance about the lifestyles of people from different parts of the country. Punjab’s culture, it’s demography, and geopolitics is very different from that of other parts of India.
Similar reactions emerged on social media with the pictures of ‘pizza’ at protest site. While the foot massagers are setup by an NGO, Khalsa Aid, the ‘pizza langar’ was organized by a group of friends from Amritsar. In a normal society the source of these massagers, pizza, langar, tents should not be a matter of debate at all. But people are enquiring about the ‘funding’ of these commodities so eagerly as if it’s not food but some deadly explosive or weapons of mass rioting. We saw exactly the same reactions last year too when biryani was being served at Shaheen Bagh for women protesting against CAA. It’s actually ironic how people find it completely normal for protestors to get lathicharged, shelled with tear gas and water canons, but protestors eating pizza immediately becomes the talk of the town. This also highlights the classist mindset of our society, “who is worthy of eating what?” Farmers, or for that matter, anyone can eat anything they want. A person’s occupation cannot decide what they are worthy of eating, wearing, or places they can go to. In a democracy, nobody can dictate what a protest site should look like, unless it is causing harm to fellow citizens or the law and order situation.
It connot be denied that there are constant efforts from the political leadership to dial down the cause of the protests, but such agitations also serve as a mirror in the face of the society. If a pizza makes us ask questions instead of the death of fifteen protesting farmers till date, then that says a lot about our dead instincts.
Random Thoughts 