The once-invincible citadels are crumbling.
People who thrived & prospered behind those thick, impregnable walls seem nervous.
Almost fearful that the boundaries they had carved, the exclusive clubs they had maintained, will now be overrun by different ideas,
thoughts, ideologies…
With little or no infusion of new blood in our arts,
literature, history, education, culture, publishing, films, politics have been reduced to mediocrity. Manned by zealous gatekeepers drunk on power & arrogance.
Nevertheless, new, brave names are now coming forth.
From quiet insistence to a suppressed roar they have begun rattling the iron gates of many a citadel.
It is a fact that since time immemorial, every civilisation & society has pushed for churn & renewal …or perished.
In the India they don’t recognise or understand -
A book will be met with a book.
A thought countered fearlessly by a contrarian thought.
Free speech will not be a one-way street.
Imagine spending every waking moment cursing the land of your birth, taunting faith & culture of the people who live here..
All the while deluding oneself to be the progeny of the sword wielding, stallion riding vanquishers from the Arabee who once ruled over Hindoostan.
Only ….
to have that horse brought to a skidding halt….!
Then insult to injury -
to be actually told to go back to what one was in denial of & running away from, in the first place.
Oops! no stallion, no sand storm, no Arabian Nights in this story dear Scheherazade of #WaPo
Strange,this past year
a man whose metier was to accuse his own country of intolerance & fascism on every occasion was killed by his co religionists in an Islamic country.
And now it took the Saudis, the keepers of Mecca Medina, to call out this woman’s dangerous doublespeak,
Out of the twelve schools I went through the 60s-70s, seven were missionary schools. Like others I went to school in the day & returned home to the safety, warmth & comfort of my family in the evenings.
Besides academics, I enjoyed the extra curricular activities these schools offered - in theatre, elocution, debate, music & sports.
I have many fond memories of those schools & some teachers left an lasting impression & lessons that serve me well to date.
It was however, in a missionary boarding school where I spent a year that I changed my opinion completely about this system of education & the influences it yields from morning to night, day after day without the cocooning protection of parents.
From my father’s various postings across India we always returned to spend at least a part of his annual leave at my grandparents home in Delhi, which in those days, was walking distance from India Gate.
To go after dinner with the extended family to the India Gate lawns, enjoy an icecream & buy a gas balloon was a treat I remember well.
George V’s statue oversaw the entire area & could be seen from every direction.
It was something that angered both my grandfather & grand uncle no end.
We kids were encouraged to always sit with our backs to it.
Mind you, my grandfather was a soldier who had served in Burma & Ceylon during WW2.
Imagine what has been interrupted.
Imagine what has been disrupted.
That the entire eco-system has no hesitation to set fire to this country, go to any length to divide it, because they believe they’ve been deprived of what is rightfully theirs & held once, so firmly.
The question arises again & again-
What exactly is at stake for them?
What exactly is the deal & with whom ?
Did they really believe that their position was so secure, with people eating out of their hands that they would continue to hold on infinitely in a democracy?
Were we even a democracy in the first place or just a sham wrapped around a Family?
This Family & its courtiers, always in power or close to it, has shown us over the past 7yrs that it has no vision,no understanding of our aspirations,nothing to offer except anarchy & violence.
Lately, there has been a lot of talk on Social Media on those who left, on those who wish to leave, but little on those who are considering a return…
When some of our friends & family left to make a life overseas through the 70s-90s - a time of acute shortages & that License Raj which broke the spirit of entrepreneurship - we didn’t, because if truth be told, we hadn’t in hand the right opportunity to take the plunge.
However the possibility was seriously examined for the first time during the UPA years when governance & State seem to crumble before our eyes, brazen skull-numbing corruption hit you in the face on a daily basis,