#MyThursdayThing
When
I have to publish the blog on Thursday, I generally start thinking about what I
would like to share this week from Monday. Last week also I was in a similar frame
of mind. Having attended a poetry workshop on Sunday, I was thinking of talking
about that. However, I wasn’t feeling very good inside. I procrastinated, not
knowing what was it that was making me not want to write. I didn’t want to
force myself and I still had time, but time passed. Tuesday—Wednesday— now
Thursday… I wasn’t still feeling up to it. As Thursday passed, I let the day go
and I didn’t write, assuming no one would notice. However, on Saturday, I got
an email from a dear friend who castigated me saying “your thursdaything is
getting more irregular than regular”. I
owed it to him to let him know what was happening within me.
That
week, the country’s tally for new coronavirus cases stood at no. 1, surpassing the
US. That week also marked one year of a change of status of Jammu and Kashmir
and was a week when the PM of our country laid the foundation of the Ram temple
at Ayodhya.
I
was silent, reconciled to the new normal in many ways and woke up on Thursday
with a sinking feeling. The time when all the resources in the country needed
to be deployed at fighting the coronavirus, the country’s priority was a Ram
temple. Millions in the country got affected badly due to the lockdown and the
coronavirus pandemic, but the government was celebrating Ram. The medical
fraternity in the country had been working relentlessly since February,
fighting the pandemic and the people were celebrating a Ram temple. I had never
before felt so helpless. We were almost officially a Hindu nation and that did
not feel right at all. We had failed or almost failed the constitution because
the religious and state boundaries were getting blurred.
The
events of that week also brought back memories of my growing up years when I
saw the rise of this Hindu sentiment up close, in my home town Kanpur. The run
up to the Babri Masjid demolition, the communal riots that followed in Uttar
Pradesh and Bombay and the 1993 Bombay Bomb blasts. Over the years the politics of this communal
game only got clearer with the innumerous terrorist attacks, Godhra accident,
Gujrat riots, and so many more incidents. In those years, when my understanding
of this country’s politics was taking shape, I had even written an open letter
to LK Advani, saying we don’t need a temple; we need jobs and a stable economy.
However, looking at the state of the nation today and the jubilation that was
experienced last year when a part of us were locked in their own state while
their fate was rewritten and then the celebration for a Ram temple amidst the
world’s most severe health crisis, makes me realize that maybe the people of the
country do need, just a Ram temple.
Every
time an event like those of last week happen, the country and its people get
further divided and polarized. The division
or the cracks are for all to see; it is right there in our face and cuts across
the heart. That to my mind is the real partition that is being witnessed now
and is much more frightening than the physical one of 1947. This rise of religion
and in its name the ongoing and unending violence and bloodshed makes me numb almost
akin to being in a sinking ship. I am unable to take any action in terms of
writing or art and everything feels hopeless. I guess that hopelessness is what gripped me
last week.
However,
stand up we must and speak we must and write we must and paint we must, for
then we will know that in our despondency, we may not be alone, that there may
be many like us. Through my actions then I may be able to give another a voice
or hope and I may give myself a push to do that which I have promised to do,
and so here I am the next week writing,
talking, sharing and hoping I am not alone.
©Shubhra
#9 August 13th, 2020
#9 August 13th, 2020
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