A very very important person in my life has recently abandoned me. I call it abandonment because that is how it has panned out over the weeks. Total incommunicado. No phone call, no messages, no emails, no responses to any of my calls or messages or attempt to reach out. I felt the helplessness that I have never felt before. The feeling of rejection, humiliation and abandonment engulfed me totally. When you want to speak to someone and you can’t or are not allowed, it can be heart breaking. Mind was full with all kinds of questions and doubts. . Fortunately for me I was aware that the person is alive through his off and on online status or his change of his whatsapp DP. I wondered what kind of behaviour is this. Did I not deserve being given a reason for non communication; a closure in case I wasn’t required in his life; if there were issues between us couldn’t there have been other civil ways to deal with it than just leave a person on the highway. I felt horrible, hopeless and extremely sad. Soon enough I reconciled to the fact that I will have to accept that he is no more in my life.
Kashmir was one of the reasons we connected ` and he actually treated me in a way rest of India and the government has treated Kashmir. 59 days and counting and the entire state is still under complete lock-down. 45 days and counting and this person made no attempt to end the deadlock. Through this personal story I am trying to make an attempt to understand what it is like when you just can’t pick up that phone and call the person you wish to talk to out of love, for emergency, or work or even socially. More importantly I am totally bewildered by the psyche behind trampling the rights of the other, the happiness in humiliating the other or plain just insensitively abandoning someone, in this case an entire state, approximately 4 million people.
Totally disturbed by the turn of events in my life and in my country, I got this message on a group that we must observe 2nd October as #cybersatyagrah #lockmedown. That we must switch off phone, radio, TV and internet from 10 am to 10 pm and then try and share this experience.
So on 2nd October, I did #lockmedown. During the day several occasions I felt and missed my phone. However honestly just now since I am in the hills and semi cut off from the urban world and the urban needs, I did not miss the communication much. There were things I was reminded off and I would tell myself oh I can look this up post 10 pm or if I thought of calling someone I would say, I will call tomorrow. A couple of times to call my house help I walked up to her house. But by and large since I have been on a semi recluse mode I didn’t miss much. However by the time it was 7 pm, I was looking at the watch and waiting for 10 pm. The last 3 hours were hard. Not that I had anything to do with the phone but since I could not use it I was thinking of all the people I would like to reach out to and to all the information I needed. I was thinking of a special friend who was in a bit of stress and I was waiting to reach out to her. I was thinking of my family and the worse was being imagined, what if they really needed me in these 12 hours? Will I be in for any surprise when I switch on the phone? 10 pm happened and I quickly switched on my phone and was inundated by messages, some important but mostly usual or casual. My friend was waiting for clock to strike 10 and she called me and we spoke and I told her how I felt the whole day.
The one thing I realised from this experience was how fake was my protest. I was trying to experience a lock-down and back of my mind I knew I would be able to be back in the wired world by 10 Pm. The Kashmiris, in whose solidarity I did this, on the other hand, do not know when the clock will strike 10 pm. They have no comfort that something can be done tomorrow. With all good intentions I supported the protest and participated in #cybersatyagrah, but no one and I say no one outside that space will ever understand, feel or know what it was to be completely locked down. Maybe I felt it more when I was abandoned by this person because that was a real emotional lock-down that was inflicted on me. Cyber lock down somehow didn’t have the same effect. To draw a parallel, the Kashmir lock-down today is actually not about just communication blockade, it is about the emotional abuse, the physical clampdown on their space, the militarisation, the humiliation and the abandonment of an entire state which otherwise seemed a prized possession. This abuse and this lock-down can happen to anyone anytime. Today it is one state tomorrow it will be another. To the person in my life, the pain I felt was not so much due to the fact that you are not there but more because of the humiliation and the rejection your acts inflicted on me. Today it was me, tomorrow it could be someone else, who knows…
As for Kashmir, the Kashmiris they are still waiting for the clock to strike 10 pm
(c) Shubhra
October 3, 2019
#standwithkashmir
#cybersatyagrah
#endlockdown
#justice4kashmir
#Endoccupation
Kashmir was one of the reasons we connected ` and he actually treated me in a way rest of India and the government has treated Kashmir. 59 days and counting and the entire state is still under complete lock-down. 45 days and counting and this person made no attempt to end the deadlock. Through this personal story I am trying to make an attempt to understand what it is like when you just can’t pick up that phone and call the person you wish to talk to out of love, for emergency, or work or even socially. More importantly I am totally bewildered by the psyche behind trampling the rights of the other, the happiness in humiliating the other or plain just insensitively abandoning someone, in this case an entire state, approximately 4 million people.
Totally disturbed by the turn of events in my life and in my country, I got this message on a group that we must observe 2nd October as #cybersatyagrah #lockmedown. That we must switch off phone, radio, TV and internet from 10 am to 10 pm and then try and share this experience.
So on 2nd October, I did #lockmedown. During the day several occasions I felt and missed my phone. However honestly just now since I am in the hills and semi cut off from the urban world and the urban needs, I did not miss the communication much. There were things I was reminded off and I would tell myself oh I can look this up post 10 pm or if I thought of calling someone I would say, I will call tomorrow. A couple of times to call my house help I walked up to her house. But by and large since I have been on a semi recluse mode I didn’t miss much. However by the time it was 7 pm, I was looking at the watch and waiting for 10 pm. The last 3 hours were hard. Not that I had anything to do with the phone but since I could not use it I was thinking of all the people I would like to reach out to and to all the information I needed. I was thinking of a special friend who was in a bit of stress and I was waiting to reach out to her. I was thinking of my family and the worse was being imagined, what if they really needed me in these 12 hours? Will I be in for any surprise when I switch on the phone? 10 pm happened and I quickly switched on my phone and was inundated by messages, some important but mostly usual or casual. My friend was waiting for clock to strike 10 and she called me and we spoke and I told her how I felt the whole day.
The one thing I realised from this experience was how fake was my protest. I was trying to experience a lock-down and back of my mind I knew I would be able to be back in the wired world by 10 Pm. The Kashmiris, in whose solidarity I did this, on the other hand, do not know when the clock will strike 10 pm. They have no comfort that something can be done tomorrow. With all good intentions I supported the protest and participated in #cybersatyagrah, but no one and I say no one outside that space will ever understand, feel or know what it was to be completely locked down. Maybe I felt it more when I was abandoned by this person because that was a real emotional lock-down that was inflicted on me. Cyber lock down somehow didn’t have the same effect. To draw a parallel, the Kashmir lock-down today is actually not about just communication blockade, it is about the emotional abuse, the physical clampdown on their space, the militarisation, the humiliation and the abandonment of an entire state which otherwise seemed a prized possession. This abuse and this lock-down can happen to anyone anytime. Today it is one state tomorrow it will be another. To the person in my life, the pain I felt was not so much due to the fact that you are not there but more because of the humiliation and the rejection your acts inflicted on me. Today it was me, tomorrow it could be someone else, who knows…
As for Kashmir, the Kashmiris they are still waiting for the clock to strike 10 pm
(c) Shubhra
October 3, 2019
#cybersatyagrah
#endlockdown
#justice4kashmir
#Endoccupation
