Kids Are Funny

Dear Amit Shah,

I want to tell you a funny thing that happened at this place where I work in Delhi. It's a small library and on Mondays I go in to hang out with the members (mostly kids between the ages of 4 and 18), help them check out books and every so often read books aloud to them and have chats.

Every Monday is funny, because kids are funny. Even when they're not trying to be. They have a funny way of observing the world that grown ups built. I'm convinced they've got a whole standup routine running in their heads about the absurdities they experience on a daily basis.

This Monday was no different. Actually it was. Half a world away, an angry man had opened fire on a nightclub full of people, overwhelmingly from the LGBTQ community. They were just there for a good time, but by the end of the night 50 of them didn't make it out alive. Because of that angry man with a gun. So we spoke about it, funny kids and grown ups.

Why do we fear the things we don't understand? What kind of responses do we have to the fear? Do we have a choice in how we respond? Do certain groups of people deserve to live more than others? The funny kids and grown ups decided to make a list of all the different kinds of people that are targets of hate, mockery, disrespect & oppression. The list was long and had all kinds of folks in it: weird shapes & sizes, weird skin colours, weird family names, weird ways of dressing, weird choices of romantic partners, weird ways of speaking, praying and eating food. Just weird, you know?

Finally, when the list was complete the grownups wondered: If we choose hatred as a response, what would happen to these groups?
Kids: They'll all be killed!
Grown ups: If they all disappear who'll be left?

***silence***
And then an unsure but gravely serious voice offered: "Mmmm...Modi?"


I told you, Amitbhai, kids are funny. You should come hang with us.

Love,
AS

 

Make It Count

Big horror happens and we reel from the impact. Or we think we do.
We believe our hearts bleed so much for those who suffer that we can't wholly comprehend it.
We allow the terrible events unfolding outside to make us feel safe and grateful on the inside.

We tweet, blog and weep in our private corners.
Our sympathies are real, they express solidarity with an honesty of intention that eases our own anxieties just a little bit.
Nothing can help, even the tiniest thing helps.
How do we make sense of it all? What can we do?

We cling to hashtags and social media outpourings. Against our best instincts we look and re-look at photographs. We read and re-read grisly testimonies.

But how do we make it count?
Last evening, I fell asleep with the heavy knowledge of what happened in Peshawar, of what takes place every day in Syria, Iraq, Kashmir, Manipur, my own hometown of Delhi and too many other places on this planet. I wondered what I could do to make the horrific knowledge count.

The only answer I could come up with was to wake up.
To not make it about things that happened Over There but wake up to what I am complicit in Over Here.
Every moment that I am intolerant, or so wounded that I lose the ability to empathize.
Every time I see a child, a grown up or an animal in distress and do nothing.
Every time I allow injustice to happen in front of my eyes - no matter how tiny or how big.
Every time I am blind to injustice because my privilege allows me to be.
Every time I choose my comfort over doing what my heart knows is the right thing - I am complicit.

We wonder how men can look into the eyes of an innocent child and shoot point blank.
We must also wonder how we look at a shivering beggar child at a traffic stop and roll up our windows.
We wonder what makes people so ruthless they can set fire to a teacher in front of her students.
We must also then wonder what allows us to look away when we see a woman being molested in broad daylight.
These horrors are not equivalent, I know, but it is where we can begin to make them count.
Otherwise it's all empty, like a headline, a status update or a hashtag.

Breaking

This afternoon, from 1:00 pm to 1:12 pm, the news anchor read out 7 pieces of breaking news.
Each one of them was about a horrific act of violence against women - most of them, gangrapes.
One after the other after the other after the other after the other.
Take a breath.
One after the other after the other after the other.

One of the news items creating the most buzz is of two Swiss tourists biking through Madhya Pradesh, in the heart of India. They decided to camp out near in a forested area, when they were attacked by 7 men. Allegedly, they were robbed and the woman was gangraped. At the time of this post, no one has been arrested. There is chatter now, of travel advisories being issued for the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Travel advisories for countries where these things happen and modesty is outraged by boys will be boys.

Breaking. Very breaking.

And don't tell me "At least the rapes are being reported & taken seriously."  I'm not in the mood.

 **********

Let India be internationally shamed for being a rampantly criminal country.
Not safe for children, women or men. I don't care about national pride anymore. Enough is fucking enough.

Raisin

Sometimes I feel like a raisin.
Dehydrating.
Sweet, but
Deafeated.
Ready to be
Eated.

"The graisin (or giant raisin) is a raisin which has been genetically re-programmed to grow far beyond its normal size. It was produced by Japan’s National Institute of Genetics, which is unsurprising given that nation’s love for large fruits of all kinds. And while they taste exactly the same as small raisins, graisins are sure to make dinner guests stare in awe!"
http://pakway.wordpress.com/category/cool-fruits/