A Procrastination Post

 June 24, 2025

Yes, this is a procrastination post. I am supposed to be working on the first draft of a personal essay for an anthology around rituals that a friend invited me to contribute to. I did make a start but then went down the rabbit hole of both researching rituals and remembering my abhorrence of them while growing up. Time disappeared as I chased these threads and I emerged a bit richer but with knowledge unconnected to the task at hand.

Over the last twelve days my procrastination has mostly taken the form of endlessly watching news about what now is being called the 12-day War. Hopefully the ceasefire will hold and I will get back the space and time I spent following it closely, trying to watch/read different kinds of sources — left, right, Israeli, American, (I didn’t find specifically Iranian ones), and some I think which were funded by China. I’d love to spend time today drawing a large sketch showing which source said what. Frankly at the end of it all I don’t know how much who suffered and whose goals were met to what extent as in times of war not revealing these things is strategy. 

Do you know exactly who achieved what? Does the fact that at the end of it I don’t know much is that I wasted tons of time and mental space over the last twelve days? I am wondering if I learnt anything at all about the outside world or even how my mind works or why I couldn’t stop trying to track what was going on. 

What I do know is that I saw Iran as the underdog — something that shook me. Trump called Iran the bully of the Middle east and at some other time I would have agreed so for me to perceive the Ayatollah, religious, women and others oppressing, regime as an underdog was weird. Over the weekend my spouse and I had several arguments where I was supporting Iran, and he was taking them apart. I kept screaming, I agree but look at it in this context. I understood the complexities of whom and when you support something or condemn something at a very minute level and the non-black-and-whiteness of things. I guess as a teenager I wanted things to be starkly good or bad, take one side against another and the grey nuances only bloomed as I matured but still there are black-white moments in life despite ripening in wisdom.

Lately I have been doing things at the very last minute whether it is submitting applications to courses I'd like to attend or replying or acting about ‘urgent’ bank messages. I spent the time I had hoped to be working on the essay doing the above. And now I still am not writing the essay though I submitted the summary on time with the caveat that the content will hold but I am likely to restructure the flow. I am instead thinking of how I detested religious or cultural rituals as a child. I saw them as rituals of oppression and of discrimination — against girls and women of course but also lower castes and classes too. I do understand that rituals can also be forms to reinforce identity or foster social cohesion and the age-oldness of them carries an ancient energy that brings moments of depth and gravity. 

The only religious ritual that I enjoyed as a child was the walking around the raging fire on the eve of Holi, cheering the story of Holika and the Narasimha Vishnu avatar, and celebrating the joy of colours the next morning. In the ritual essay I hope to write I want to focus on the Joyo no Kane Japanese ritual performed on New Year’s eve which for me was transformed into a 108 kata ritual at the end of year and the connectedness it brought one year when I especially needed it. 

The other struggle in my life has been between my knee and me. Maybe that should be my knee and I since this is the subject not object of my struggle. But then perhaps it is the object. I am examining the struggle between my knee and me, but I can also say that — My knee and I are in conflict with each other. In any case these days I often see my knee as something separate from me that I examine, curse, analyse, disown, nurture, and mostly cry about. Since January this year my right knee has been a constant attention grabber even when I’d rather it be like my sweet, functional, docile left knee that does what it is supposed to. As a believer that chronic symptoms are a messenger of change I do think about the knee in those terms too, and I am planning to work deeper on it with a process therapist but I already also do know the direction this right knee is asking me to go in. I just am unable to accept the change it is calling for and as I don’t accept it acts more autonomous and screams for even more attention. In previous times when joints tried to assert themselves, I always calmed down their nuisance value with anti-inflammatories but after I contracted covid or took the vaccines my stomach has also decided to become fragile and react to attempts to use them. I am in a 'Cold War' with my body.

So next month I will be focused on attempting to integrate the changes the knee is shouting for. It is scary business, but I see no other choice now. More on it later. 

I missed writing but I also didn’t know what to write about for a long time as I felt empty of everything but my knee and some other crises in my life and in the lives of loved ones. Also I think I no longer want to write the way I used to but I don’t know how I want to write anymore. A time of transition(s).

Setback(s)

May 13, 2025

            It’s been one of those weeks, one that sometimes feels like a month and at the same time feels like a heartbeat. India attacked Pakistan, Pakistan responded, and Indian media went berserk and ‘attacked’ Rawalpindi, Karachi, and Islamabad. It was embarrassing watching India being joked about by other countries. Then Trump tweeted about a ceasefire, and both India and Pak insisted the other had capitulated. Trump tweeted again, acting like a school marm with a stick, and threatened, you can’t get any trade unless you stop your war. Most Indias were pissed with him and some Indians also wondered why our PM wasn’t telling him to get lost, but our PM was lost himself until last evening. 

            The PM made a 20-minute speech at 8 pm IST last evening. Most of what he said had been said before. He did tell us India will not be blackmailed by nuclear threats or threats of trade. He did say India-Pak was a bi-lateral issue, but he didn’t clearly tell Trump to get lost and some of us wondered why. India had stood against bullies before. 

            I watched a discussion about his speech during which the speech was praised as powerful. One person even said it was the most powerful speech ever made by any politician and I was like, dude, were you born yesterday or do you think the rest of us were. Anyway, it felt like Orwellian doublespeak, which left me wondering if had missed something ‘powerful’ in his speech and if I should replay it. Later before I slept, I was pleased to watch another press conference where the person brought up the unanswered questions that I had been left with. Like last week I was relieved that someone had spoken what I had been feeling. Lesson one of this week was to trust my gut and sing my tunes even when the world was blasting other noise.

            In the behind the scenes stuff during this week a big one was about China assisting Pakistan during this mini-battle — many say that they were using Pak to test their defense equipment against Western made defense equipment used by India. The Chinese equipment did well, and the share value of the arms company rose. I wonder if that is one reason the ceasefire happened. China seems to have gained in field tests as well as economically and I wonder if the terrorists that killed the civilians in Baisaran were funded by China. They haven’t yet been caught or killed, and I hope they will be soon — preferably caught so there is a chance to find out who sent them. 

            Meanwhile most of us could get on with our insignificant lives or let me amend that and say that I got on with my own insignificant life and struggles. Lately I have been feeling down as I feel like I have been going in never ending circles with some problems in my own life, but I had been feeling that I had made some progress towards healing my knee and ankle. But in that urgency to feel a forward movement, I rushed and pushed, and suffered a major setback there. This set off a period of gloom and brain fog and paralysis (which was particularly easy to slip into under these circumstances where the threat of a nuclear war hung). Today I am emerging from five days of level 8 pain with the second lesson of this week, a big lesson, that at this age any gains in body healing will have to be slow and steady, and pushing beyond limits is daft. I’m sad but it is what it is. 

            This morning, I woke low and saw several people had sent me the same forward — about the PM’s speech and what a precedent Operation Sindoor had set. I almost didn’t get on to the monthly call I have with a group of writer friends, the Prosers, I had met during an online class. Part of me wanted to wallow and I was convinced the Americans wouldn’t possibly get what I was feeling. But I got on the call and everyone was in a slump. A person was angry because her very rich boss was ‘instantly’ closing the company she works in. She had to figure out her life in a heartbeat. Another works in environment and under the new Trump regime was worried about her job. Both hoped they would write a million-dollar book and be worry free. I did too. Another was sad because her best friend’s dog was in ICU, and the last of the group didn’t attend because he was going through a mini-nervous breakdown. All of us are worried about him. We spoke also about the importance of being kind to everyone during these times. I’ve been an hermit lately so the authentic social contact even with others who were also in a slump felt reviving.

            So yes, three big lessons this week on a personal level. The first two mentioned above to trust the gut, and let healing find its own pace. The last was, get on those calls and don’t cancel those one-to-ones with people you trust as authentic relating is also healing. 

            A calm beat amidst setbacks on so many levels. Breathe easy and love yourself. 

An Unpopular Opinion

May 8, 2025

            Yesterday I woke to news of India’s operation Sindoor against Pakistan. I wasn’t surprised. A friend in NY had sent me a message on Tuesday night about mock drills (for what to do in case of an attack by Pakistan) in different Indian states. Did you know about this? she had asked. Yes, I had replied, India is readying to attack and I actually think it might be tonight itself. 

Indians had been baying for blood, and apparently India had the right to respond militarily (which means with violence) to the terrorist attack which killed 28 people at Pahalgam. The international community, world leaders, had said it was allowable, while also advising caution. This last bit was laughed at by Indian citizens because most countries do not show caution while avenging attacks on their soil but advocate it for others. 

            So, I wasn’t surprised. But I was sad. I didn't think one measured, focused attack would be it. 

            What did surprise me yesterday morning was a video of survivors from Pahalgam that was making the rounds. Family members of those killed were saying how at peace they felt that the death of their spouse, father, son, had been avenged. All those killed in Pahalgam had been male, and the widows had been left to tell the tale. Thus the name chosen for the attack was operation Sindoor. Indoor being the red powder a married Hindu woman wore in the parting of her hair after marriage. A practice many Indian women do not adopt anymore. 

I did wonder about how quickly this video had been put together — I saw it at 8 am and the attack was apparently completed at 1:40 am.  I also wondered if I would have been satisfied with 'revenge' and stop asking for accountability. But I pushed that unpopular and ‘un-Indian’ thought aside. I was supposed to be jumping up and down praising our army and the government. I think our army is pretty good despite the attrition effect some recent policies by the government has had on it. 

            The fear of what next, and many other confusing thoughts paralyzed me, I wanted to talk to someone but there was nobody to talk to. So I did what I often do, put aside the tasks of my day and began reading independent media articles and the comments by readers below. I was surprised by the number of comments made on the Operation Sindoor articles by Pakistani male profiles. Most of them claimed the operation had been a failure for India as Pakistan had shot down five Indian jets. One man had written, Wait for Operation Suhagraat. Beware Indian girls. Threatening rape as an act of war. At once I replied, What a disgusting comment. The women of India are not scared. 

            What followed surprised me the most. The man who wrote that comment didn’t reply. Perhaps he didn’t need to. Radical Hindu men who have I have exchanged comments with in the past ganged up on me. Calling me cryto (apparently it means a fake Indian profile in troll lingo), falsely showing patriotism, calling me a Pakistani profile, labelling me a converted Hindu so not Indian, an agent of Pakistan etc. And I saw this happening to several others who previously had criticized the government but were now obviously speaking for India. The were people whose opinions often matched mine. It was horrifying that the Hindutva radicals were still interested in trolling fellow Indians. It shouldn’t have shocked me, but it did. For some reason I had felt at that moment our differences would not matter. 

            Beyond this attack of fellow Indians by Indian trolls, there was complete symmetry in the voices of extremists from both sides. War cries which involved a fair amount of targeting of women (rape threats) as collateral damage, and of course of completely annihilating the other. 

            Disturbed and filled with heaviness I pulled on shorts and headed to the gym. I pushed my body to a limit I haven’t for a while (since my injuries), even doing things I had been advised not to do. No it wasn’t self-sabotage but a testing of how well the body was healing. I needed to not feel 'injured' anymore. Later as the blood flowed within my limbs along with the high from exercise hormones, my thoughts became more manageable. Two or three thoughts dominated. 

            Operation Sindoor. The name itself icked me out, but Indians seemed to love it. So apt for an operation to avenge the deaths of husbands, many had said. Count me out please, I had felt, then, Am I the only one feeling this way? Today a woman, expressed what I had been feeling, on her Facebook profile. Her post spoke of how the name reeked of the trappings of traditional, patriarchal Hinduism. Not all of us live in that paradigm, she said. I felt relief at hearing her voice and I came to a blank screen to express these unpopular views. 

            Himanshi, a survivor, wife of a naval officer had expressed an unpopular view. Her photograph that had captured the nation, been the face of mourning for the nation, a photo of her sitting on the grass beside the body of her new husband, a picture of grief immediate and intense. The photo had been appropriated by the trolls as the face of terrorism in the name of religion, Islam obviously, and been used to fuel attacks on Indian Muslims and in particular Kashmiri Muslims. Himanshi said, NO. She said she wanted peace and unity. She didn’t want Indian Muslims attacked. 

            She was mercilessly trolled. She was called an inauspicious woman, a woman who brings on the death of her husband, it was said that she frequented the hostel of Kashmiri students and had lost her virginity to a Muslim, she was called a Pak sympathizer, her love for her husband was questioned — it’s been only five to seven days since she got married. The government didn’t speak up for her though the same woman Lalita Ramdas, also a navy wife, whose post had inspired me to express my feelings had written to her privately, and stood up for her publicly.

            For the current Indian government and the trolls supporting them this was about narrative. Reclaiming it. Diverting any questions about accountability. Apparently, there had been intelligence about a possbile terrorist attack in Kashmir and PM Modi had cancelled his visit there because of ir. But they had chosen not to tell the tourists and neglected to amplify security. There is a new VVIP culture in India that doesn’t think ordinary citizens are worth protecting. Now I wondered, who would have the courage to question the government on this? The opposition had stayed silent before, the media (except for a few) had stayed silent, our voices — minority voices —couldn’t be heard. But now once India was at war could be go back in time and ask why that the original attack even happened? 

            Some media persons (whom I had previously considered intelligent but now consider cowed to the government) had called Pahalgam an inflection point. The first time Islamic terrorists had checked the religion of the victims — if they were circumcised, if they could recite the Kalim — and then killed them. But was it an inflection point or were these Islamic terrorists merely using Hindu terror tactics? We had read these reports, so many that perhaps it had become normalized. Kill him,  he is circumcised, he is Muslim. Say Jai shri ram, oh you won’t, then be lynched. The inflection point had come came years ago but those whose voices were supposed to call this out had ignored it out of fear, out of wanting to stay within the government narrative. But now this act of religious Islamic terrorism is called the inflection point. The thing we cannot tolerate. 

            And my last unpopular opinion for today — did India really have no other options?  I am not a military or strategic expert but there are options I see. We had international sympathy, we could have used it and called for international investigations of those terrorist sites in Pakistan occupied Kashmir that we targeted yesterday. We could have called for the extradition of the masterminds, insisted on international sanctions against Pakistan. We could have been a true world leader, been unique in the way we responded, shown the world a different way. But we took the route most trampled. Violence to avenge violence. 

            I didn’t realize it, though the number of books on my top shelf on non-violence, mediation, waging a non-violent struggle, about a force more powerful, should have clued me in that I am a pacifist. I do not believe in war as a way to resolve disputes. It is the easy way, the popular way. This baying for blood is primitive and we as humanity need to evolve beyond it. 

            This is an inflection point for me of sorts. One I have been sensing for a bit. Time perhaps to get off this train I am on. 

Rage

April 2, 2025

I don’t know if this happens in your country but a few weeks ago a comedian in India was targeted by Hindutva, religious far-right, groups for a joke he made about a political leader. A gang of hooligans trashed the comedy club the show was held in while police stood by allowing them to damage private property. The comedy club announced it would shut down. So effectively the hoodlums prevented the club from running their business. I wonder what the business owners will do to make a living now, how will they support their families. I wonder what they may be feeling

These Hindutva gangs have done this before. They have even halted comedy shows before they happened often because the comedian was Muslim, in fact one Muslim comedian spent some time in jail for a show he did not even perform because the Hindutva gang thought he might insult the Hindu religion during his show. 

            Does it happen in your country? Preventive arrest, vandalism, both with Police complicity, for a comedy show? Some Indians, mostly political leaders, their followers, and their troll armies, have lost their sense of humour and Hindutva gangs operate with impunity in my country.

            Later the comedian received hundreds of phone calls threatening him and his family. But when a court granted an interim anticipatory bail order until April 7, and the police could not arrest him, the police summoned the audience of the show for questioning. A person expressing outrage about this on an independent media article on Facebook asked, will they be spared if they did not laugh at the joke?

            It’s funny—not—that now in India we are told which jokes to laugh at. 

            The ruling party leaders regularly thrash the opposition, our previous PM’s, and even the freedom fighters who got our independence, and their political mates laugh loudly. These are the jokes we are allowed to laugh at. They are not funny—I mean even if I supported their party I would find those ‘jokes’ vile. They are misogynistic (calling women leaders bar dancers or prostitutes), insulting (calling opposition leaders names that demean), dehumanizing (calling Muslims termites or baby producing machines etc.). On social media the ruling party trolls abuse those of us who voice a different opinion and then add laughing face emojis. I asked one yesterday why they laugh at their own statements. He told me to stop crying and added a gif with a crying woman.

            It is not funny. It is a slide into an Orwellian state. Does this happen in your country?

            I have been waking up and falling asleep with terrible headaches. I realized a day or two ago that I am in a constant state of rage. There is rage about some personal stuff relating to some things that my family is going through. There is rage because I was informed about some disrespectful and dismissive things someone had said about me. Most of the rage though is about things happening in the world. Trump’s tariffs, the way Ukraine has been cornered by Trump and Putin, the IDF and their assault on Gaza, the stoked islamophobia and rise of fascism in India. My rage levels, on a scale of 1-10, would be close to 50. 

            This quartet/poem by Lemn Sissay comes to mind.

            I am the bull in the china shop

            With all my strength and will

            As a storm smashed the teacups

            I stood still. 

            I don’t think this was written as a rage poem, perhaps a poem about paralysis or restraint, or being mislabeled? But the imagery of the bull in a fragile space and a storm smashing teacups conjure up a destructive force that leaves one devastated. I feel devastated daily. 

            Yesterday I had coffee with a friend I hadn’t met in years. While catching up when I admitted how obsessed I was about going-ons around the world, she asked, but doesn’t that leave you angry? Don’t you want to withdraw from the news just to cope? 

            I said softly, I’ve tried and but like an addict I keep going back. 

            Some other things are not going so well too. My ankle and knee are healing much too slowly, and I truly am like a bull on a rampage, and the china shop is my home, and the teacups smashed are my spouse. I hate myself once the rage calms and I see the destructiveness with which I have used words. I wake hating myself, I am in tears as I reach out to touch my spouse in tenderness. What use is an apology when I behave the same way later that evening? And the rage could well be a coverup for depression. Rage momentarily makes you feel an adrenaline rush; depression is just a heavy, low state. One is directed outward and the other inward, but both damage the body and mind and relationships.

            The comedian, not a very popular or well-known one or as far as I know even a rich one, was asked to apologize by the political party in question, but he refused. A popular and influential, and I believe rich, actor from Mollywood made a film with a political message critical of a violent event that the ruling party was involved in. Hindutva gangs trolled and threatened him. He bowed down and made twenty-five cuts to his film. 

            I’m not sure the comedian I am writing about is funny, but he had understood what is going on in India. How free speech is controlled with violence. How violence is used to shut down what the ruling party does not want. How people, what they speak, feel, and laugh at are controlled. Is the comedian merely being stubborn or is he standing up the way all of us should do? I admire the fact that he won’t back down and fear for what these Hindutva gangs will do to him or his family. I fear for his life and the lives of his family. 

            This is the New India, Hindutva spokespeople say. We are brazen and bold and we don’t fear wearing our civilizational values written in blood on our outerwear. Apparently, Hindutva groups around the world are tying up with other extreme right Islamophobic and racist groups to protect and project their civilizational values to the rest of us. They organize and propagate. I sometimes imagine a fascist world where those who would rather not be so cower and stay quiet to stay safe. 

What do the rest who are not hard-core rightists do? Some sigh and say those values are not so bad and besides I’m part of the mainstream, so I won’t be persecuted. Then perhaps add, just don’t make such jokes, eh. Some of us think that the values we believe in, based on equality and inclusion, do not need work to remain stable, and will always be the guiding light for civilization. We are wrong, they are dying and like the right-wing groups seek other right-wing groups we need to seek and work hard to keep the values we want alive. We need to work together towards the world we want to live in. 

            How is freedom of speech allowed or controlled where you are? How does one start a non-violent movement to stand up for it? Perhaps if I can figure this out my rage will ebb.

A Long Personal Winter

March 27, 2025

            The last two weeks have passed in a blur. The previous one very heavy, because of health-related turbulence that my cat and human family and I were going through, accentuated by strong political happenings at many levels — including the impending Singapore elections. This week the blur has been due to busyness and attempts to un-crease last week’s anxieties. Within the hectic schedule though there were two emotionally intimate lunches with friends, one that I have known for twenty-seven years and the other for seventeen. Both strong women that have made tough life choices and whose search to be true to themselves has been the driving factor for the choices they made, particularly in their forties and beyond.

            The late thirties or early forties is the time that many of us begin to look at our lives and contemplate if we are where we want to be and if we are who we want to be. For me it was the early thirties when feelings of being in the wrong life, the wrong body, began to disturb my everyday normalcy. Then a severe bout of pneumonia that overlapped with nation altering religio-political events opened doors into new paths. Perhaps those doors would have opened and closed without me noticing them if it hadn’t been for the pneumonia that had halted the life that was then. Stepping through the door was like stepping into a new being. What of the old did I keep I am not sure, but because I took risks and allowed the disturbances to amplify rather than attempt to suppress them I emerged from chrysalis to adult. And the changes, exhilarating and scary kept coming at a pace perhaps too quick to properly integrate. While some might say I polished my facets and got to know each side, others might say I became a rolling stone that proverbially gathers no moss. 

Well, who wants moss, right. I just looked up the meaning of that idiom — a rolling stone gathers no moss — and an explanation tells me that a person who doesn’t have roots in one place will not gather wealth or status or responsibilities or commitments. Hmm… It is true that I haven’t gathered the first two, because I rolled and rolled with every change — whether it was to do with change of country or career, but I do have plenty of the second two. I wish I could take those — feeling responsible and committed to the lives of others — less seriously. A chapter and meditation in the Kornfield book did focus on recognizing that you are not responsible for the choices and life somebody else leads. But I am a human, deeply tied to this world, while aching to be free of it, and this kind of compassionate detachment is hard.

Moss makes rocks slippery, it can look pretty in some places, but it can also feel like neglect and stagnation. So, I don’t want moss. I truly don’t care about accumulating wealth though it would be nice to feel secure about some things. I don’t care about status because when I look around, I see the crazy things a person does to retain it. That feels like prison to me.

I am bored with myself right now. From the thirties until a few years ago I had become very good at listening to myself and following the changes that wanted to surface. Since 2022 I have felt an increasing dampening of the voice within and have struggled to know where the next door is. I covered up the pain of this separation with my inner voice with busyness — like moving homes — but I understood over these last two weeks of heaviness, blur, and a couple of clear afternoon conversations where this inability to see the next doors might have begun. 

In 2022 a huge external event split me. The karate organization I belong to split, and I made a choice that felt like amputating some of my limbs. I process emotional pain by writing but I didn’t write about it fully, afraid of betraying something, someone, myself, if I wrote — even if I didn’t show the work to anyone else. And as I closed the door to examining that part of my life deeply, I seemed to have also shut of my ability to examine everything I did deeply. Closing of sensitivity to one side of yourself sometimes chokes off everything, doesn’t it? And so, my life force stagnated and my ability to listen to that within me that points me towards new inner seeds dulled and disappeared until life was a continuous freeze, a winter of sorts for too many things.  

Though every season has its own purpose, and the retreat and dormancy of winter is needed for restoration, one cannot endure any one season continuously and must know when to allow the thaw. Winter is cold, mono-toned, and time may pass slower during it. Nature has the wisdom to hibernate and be ready, but I passed the time restless, expending more energy than I needed to. I know I am at another edge or threshold of life, maybe one that many go through in their sixties, but due to temporary snow blindness I am unable to sense the path beyond. I am beginning to write about that time, 2022, now and face the unpleasant emotions that have swirled around creating a prison of sorts. May that facilitate a new spring.

The Sleepy Sweet Shop

March 13, 2025

Last night I had a dream which probably describes an inner conflict I didn’t realize I was grappling with. 

I was in a sleepy little store on a planet in the far corner of the universe, carrying a woven basket to the checkout counter. The shelves in the store were wooden and filled with few choices but still had everything I needed. A muscly grey haired man was following me around urging me to reconsider my decision. He was dressed in a tightly fitted outfit (read like superman or batman or ironman) with some military insignia. We were both trained warriors and my decision in response to a crisis where some rich and powerful megalomaniac was planning a takeover of the world, was to stay on my sleepy in little planet, in my sleepy little town, with its sleepy stores and let the Universe go on. The muscly man was going to board a spaceship to take him to the heart of the war.

The sleepy store reminded me of a store in the city of Poona which was a town compared to bustling Bombay when I was growing up. We had a family home there and my cousins and I spent many weeks of the summer there, chaperoned by an elderly aunt or uncle while our parents visited occasionally. Once a week we were driven to Dorabji’s in what was called the ‘camp’ area and were allowed to buy a bag of sweets. We chose from jars on shelves behind a counter filled with store made hard-boiled sweets without wrappers, or factory made ones with wrappers, toffees, and little bars of chocolate. I looked long and hard at the jars but always picked out lemon drops and bullseyes though the man behind the counter would add a few cherry sours into my bag. I don’t know why we were never taken to such a shop in Bombay then? That memory put a smile on my face and I had to write it here though it doesn’t have anything to do with the topic of this post. Except sweet memories do help compensate for the difficult times some of us are going through. 

Actually of course all the world is going through the changing and uncertain times, some of us like the woman in the sleepy store have found ways to continue our lives and let the drama play out. I can imagine her saying, anyway what can I do about it. It depresses me and I don’t want to feel so helpless, it’s nicer just living out my cozy small life and not thinking about the bigger things I cannot possibly influence.

I have been feeling that helplessness though my spirit has been more akin to that of the man ready to do battle and fight for the Universe he wants to live in and leave behind for his grandchildren. He too knows not much of what he does will make a difference but then he remembers all the films he grew up with, and all the stories his grandparents told him about the times when a seemingly insignificant bunch of rebels challenged the imperial forces. (Ya, I’ve read and watched too many such stories )

But, last night’s dream had that quality and so does the world at times. Can’t you see Darth Vader walking to greet the Emperor, hear the music, feel the sentiment?

Recently I was called an armchair warrior by a rightwing fanatic, one of those convinced that all India needs to do to solve its problems is dominate the Muslims, make their lives unlivable because Mughal emperor Aurangzeb made the lives of his ancestors miserable. I say ‘his’ because many of these creepy troller-types have a male profile. Often with names like Shiva, or Krishna, but also Jiten and Vineet’s exist in that spectrum. The term was meant to hurt me, but I don’t mind being called an armchair warrior. What are they too anyway? Lately though my secret life of being an armchair warrior has taken over more sane aspects of me and that is concerning. Yet in some tiny way it helps me feel less helpless so it is a release.

Yet truly I don’t know how to respond to, how to stem the feelings of helplessness as India rolls over backwards and hands itself over to forces like Trusk. Other countries are resisting, are making changes to make themselves independent as quickly as they can even as they to feel it a gigantic and sometimes impossible task. But India is rolling over and handing over the country to not only its own rich and powerful but also the rich and powerful Trusk, while reshaping the narrative people get to hear through controlled mainstream media or simply diverting it so that all their hordes talk about is Muslims and the ghosts of Aurangzeb and Nehru. I wonder what factors keep our iron-man Modi from even making one little squeak when Trump has insulted India over and over.

Ya, I seem to be in a loop repeating the same things I felt last week and the week before and before that. Yesterday though when I heard that Musk’s Starlink was coming to India I felt a different level of low. Today is a new day though and like the man in my dream I will keep resisting, though I suppose I need a day off, or an hour off, to visit the sleepy sweet shop occasionally. I do still want to soothe my low with a sweet treat or a stub nibbed pen, but I have better control over this urge now and instead watch cooking competitions. And the book I had begun reading a few weeks ago, Light in the Darkness, is helpful in finding equanimity in these times. But it is extremely satisfying to shut one right-winger up, to take apart his logic and render him unable to respond except by calling me names. 

And lately when they can’t stop us by calling us anti-Hindu, anti-India, sickular, liberandu, they move on to abusing our daughters and wives and even mothers. A different anger arises when women and their honour is brought into the equation. One that is unstoppable. 

Back, And A Dim Lamp Appears

March 3, 2025

My Bombay visit was an interesting trip with one question that I did ask myself during the uneasy and uncomfortable days in Bombay. And a friend here asked me the same as soon as I told her I was back and had spent my days resting, drawing in my graphic journal, watching art videos, and eating home cooked food because of my respiratory illness and my leg jamming up. She asked, did you need to stop and rest, and eat?

Of course I did. That is the only way to step back out of the same routines that have stagnated life and give them time to re-set. I guess like a circuit/habit breaker. But I was reluctant to say yes to her which surprised me. Maybe because I currently feel that I haven’t had any very deep insights, nor have I changed several of the habits I wanted to. Either I need a longer circuit breaker or?

So, a circuit breaker is an electrical switch designed to protect an electrical circuit from damage caused by overcurrent/overload or short circuit. Its basic function is to interrupt current flow after protective relays detect a fault.

And so this was one. There is a fault. I’ve been feeling ‘off the path’, lost, scattered, and unable to see beyond the fogs in front of me. I discussed this with the same friend a few days before I left for Bombay. I told her about my frustrations with a lack of creative thought, with the lack of beauty when I write, the lack of words themselves. That suddenly I felt like I didn’t know what to do with the rest of my life. That the things I thought I wanted could be things that I thought I wanted out of habit and that I had lost touch with what I really wanted. I said I wanted to do karate but wondered what my body was telling me — I didn’t think it was to stop training but it definitely was to change something.  I asked her, what do I do? She had gone through this same dilemma for years earlier, at a time when I had felt happy sitting for hours and writing (I notice it gives me less joy now). In those days I would listen to her and see her efforts to try different things until perhaps a year or two ago she hit upon what she wanted to do. And now, the roles had shifted and she listened to me.

The other thing that is a ‘fault’ is the state of my ankle and knee. I had my first physio back here on Friday. She was good, asked a lot of questions no other physio had asked, and one of the first things she said to me is that I had to start noticing pain again. That I was so used to training through pain that I didn’t know it anymore. This truth hit me hard. She stressed that rehab with the tears I had, would be slow and unless I did the boring basic exercises and allowed the muscle to build, I would continue having these issues. My body, my ankle particularly had to relearn many things. 

This is true of the body and of the mind. Relearning, noticing, patience. It is also true that the last two years have been those with mind numbing stress. Even in the days when I was preparing to return here, our white cat got violently ill and the day after I returned the vet said it might be cancer. I can’t live without Yoda, my daughter said on a call to me. None of us can, I replied. 

Maybe when things feel the darkest one does get help in different forms and the wisdom is to see it when it comes. This time it came as a book. I was searching the library app for a book, and I don’t recall which words were similar but what popped up was Kornfield’s book, A Lamp in the Darkness. In the introduction he tells a story about a nomad family where the youngest daughter keeps asking, are we there yet. And the father replies, stop asking that, we’re nomads. And then the next paragraph…

“Every life is filled with change and insecurity, every life includes loss and suffering and difficulties that arise regularly. We are all nomads in this ever-changing world, and we need ways to ground ourselves and remain centered no matter what happens.”

Sometimes just the right entry path back into ‘Dharma’ or ‘faith’ and a re-introduction to the self appears. It has happened to me many times in the past particularly at times of deep crisis. But it hadn’t happened in a long time until yesterday when the book flirted with me, and I borrowed it. People who know me know that I am not religious. We were brought up to be so by my parents and the rest of my family are practicing Hindus. But when my country leaders began using religion to create hate and oppress other religions, I turned away from it, though I always tread some path of ‘Dharma’ from the spiritual or mystical traditions of many religions including Hinduism, but mostly Buddhism. I had lost that connection to faith a few years ago. The question when and why does hover within but I cannot answer those right now but when I saw the book I instantly knew that the emptiness I have been feeling which intensified in September last year came from this loss. Unexpectedly a door has opened, a dim lamp beckons. 

 

What Feel Like Miracles

February 24, 2025

            Thank you for your prayers and healing vibes and thoughts, and for reaching out privately and sharing your experiences — either with knee pain or with dealing with elderly parents. The latter helped me understand the reasons for the choice of prioritizing this visit over self-care. My leg improved gradually; it felt miraculous considering the pain level was so high despite strong painkillers given to me by the ortho. I stopped the physio as I did not feel able to trust her but kept the icing/heating going and today my pain is about level 3 and I am not using any painkillers. I am astonished. The second antibiotic course completed yesterday—Phew! I still cough but it’s not phlegmy and frequent. 

            And so here I am almost at the end of this trip. The emotional low has shifted, not only because of health improvement but because of a few other things that happened. 

I had formulated goals for this trip on my flight. I have only completed the top three, but I am ok with that. Since I am essentially a storyteller I will tell one here. 

            About a year and a half ago, I wrote a short story after a Bombay visit. It was about sisters and a particular dysfunctional pattern they were stuck in. Of course, the pattern came from my relationship with my sister but the other elements of the story are different, including their backgrounds and personalities. I put that story away for long after I wrote it, but it seems like it acted upon me in the mysterious way that journalling or stories, whether read or written, act upon me. 

            During the visit in January 2024 (though I had forgotten about the story I had written) I noticed the pattern as it began to arise, and I decided to not participate. Dysfunctional relationship patterns between two independent adults require both to participate. I am guessing that this refusal from me was a shock to her that she didn’t know what to do with, and as the days went by our relating felt less authentic and distances began growing in the relationship. I couldn’t leave Bombay quickly enough, and I don’t think I blogged about the trip except in passing after I had returned. I made another trip here in September/October last year too. Before that, my sister and I were arguing a lot on phone calls, but the trip itself did bring us together as we were focused on the best care routines for my mom, which would also not stress my sister out too much. I did blog about that. 

            But despite this when I returned the relationship distance grew once again and often phone calls were terminated with a sadness that pulled me down for days. I tried to bridge the gap but couldn’t. I deeply hated that and dreaded this trip here. I made those goals on the flight hoping some focus and structure might help with the long, long days here. The top goal was to get back to authentic relating with her, the next was to help her with the prep for the trust and tax documents. The third was to meet a friend who I hadn’t met in a few years. The list went on further, but these were the most pressing ones.

            Goal two was worked upon—slow and steady and we have almost completed it. But I had lost hope of achieving goal one and three with my two body dysfunctions. My friend who also struggles with chronic body issues made a huge effort and visited me at home yesterday! What a sweet joyful reunion. She’s the first friend to who I could reveal myself completely to and feel accepted, at a time when I was going through one of the worst crises of my life—even though I had known her only a few months then. A magical, soul connection, and slipping back into that was effortless.

            And here I come to the biggest miracle of this trip. Unexpected and so very precious, and I think this too came from that story. I read it again recently and things began clicking and clicking internally. 

            Until Friday last week, things were thickly fraught and delicately fragile between us. That evening we had argued about the way she handles the house help but underneath that was an argument about what agree and understand meant to her and me. For her, they were the same and disagreeing meant one hadn’t understood the other, so when I disagreed she felt I couldn't understand her and it hurt. My experience was different. I might understand someone and the motivations behind what they desire and what they do but I might not agree with it. She seemed stunned to hear this, but didn’t say anything and we changed the topic. 

I had urged my sister to go away for the day with a visiting cousin that Saturday. My sis is a control monster in the home, and I made detailed notes about what and how she wanted me to manage the day. She returned with a huge smile which vanished almost instantly because I had messed up on a couple of things (maybe more but one major one to her). I told her she needed to let go when she was out and trust I would do the best I could. She frowned and went away. I began talking to my cousin, someone I had spent many summers with. She’d spend a month here or I would at her parents’ home. My mom and hers came from a family of nine but they were closest in age and remained close after, even though they married into different cities. We caught up about each other's current lives and reminisced about those summers. 

Suddenly my sister returned. Her face washed and hair combed. She gave my cousin her phone and asked for her to take a picture for her. Then she came around my chair and engulfed me in a close embrace. She never initiates hugs. I couldn’t smile for the first picture because I was so dazed. So, my cousin took another and that is and will remain one of the most precious memories of all time for me. 

When I look back, I can see the small steps that led us here. I can see that a lot of my changed ways of listening and talking to her came from some written or unwritten parts of that story. What happened completely lifted me out of the mild hopelessness I was feeling and a sweet delight filled up the gaps between us and the holes within me. The story I wrote does not end this way, but I won’t tell you what it is in case you read it someday. And I also know this ‘fragrance’ might not last between us, but require more work later, as all relationships do, but savoring this today is beyond priceless. 

I don’t want to say anything beyond this today.  

Once again thank you to so many of you for your warm wishes.

Worst Trip Ever

February 18, 2025

            How do you write about personal terrible things in a meaningful way? It’s not that I only share great things that happen to me, but ongoing chronic body symptoms can sound whiny. I could write about other things on my mind, but constant pain and discomfort are hard to completely ignore. I’ve avoided writing the mostly weekly post because I am not sure what to say or how. 

            I took a flight to Bombay a week and a half ago. I had a very slight cold and a knee/ankle pain level of two. I was walking normally. The day after I woke with a cough and my sis called up a doctor. She put me on antibiotics, a syrup that disoriented me, and some kind of decongestant that also made me woozy. Nothing helped much and the phlegmy coughing went on and on and on and today too it continues despite seeing another doctor, last week on Friday, and more meds. I avoided meeting my mom, afraid of passing on the infection to her. My sis felt comfortable around me, so we chatted and hung out a bit together but as the cough worsened, she too felt anxious about being around me. Yet I wore masks and helped her with the work she was doing. Unfortunately, this involved a lot of standing and my bad leg worsened and even now with reduced steps, icing, heating and, and some physio, it is unstable and I cannot put weight on it. It also crumbled under me three times and each time I felt intense pain that aggravated the symptom. Now, I fear I have damaged it further from the point of not needing surgery, to I might need it now. Can that happen or is it a fear I have? That we all probably have when ill—imagine the worst while hoping for the best. 

            I’m trying to make sense of why I didn’t prioritize self-care and made this trip. If I been thinking clearly, I probably would have postponed, got some physio and strengthening, and then come. I think I didn’t want to disappoint my sister who was so excited about my being here. I feel guilty to leave her with so much here and I wonder what to do about it. The only thing is to be here whenever I can and help as much as possible then. 

            But this time I came and got both a chronic respiratory infection (Bombay flu made worse by smog) and worsened my leg to the point where I can’t walk. I keep hoping both will get better but some part of me knows they are unlikely to —the first until I leave this smoggy city and the second I don’t even know when, and what is wrong. I hope I don’t have to get another MRI but it looks like I might. So ya, worst trip ever. Not because I got sick but because the respiratory infection kept me from sitting with my mum which is the main purpose of these trips. 

            I need to reflect on why self-care didn’t come first and the levels of stupidity fueled by other emotions — like guilt and wanting to make my sis happy — led to this flawed choice. I don’t know if you have made choices to please someone when you have been ill which have led to you being iller? What made you choose what you did? 

            While sitting by myself a lot this time I found I couldn’t focus on reading. I brought two books with me Barbarian Days, a surfing memoir and Tender is the Night. I did a few sketches, and watched the news but mostly watched videos on making art and on art materials which hopefully I will never buy because I doubt if I will use them as I have a ton of unused stuff at home. I am one of those who is addicted to art materials which I use a fraction of and then while clearing give away to others who do use it joyfully. 

            The news preoccupying me has been people killed in stampedes in India while visiting the Maha-Kumbh, a huge festival on the banks of the Ganges that occurs only every few years when a certain configuration of planets happens, and the coverups involved so the people of India remain unaware of the numbers that died. The other news is Trump and Musk, particularly the meeting with Modi—the press conference and Modi’s speech where he said MAGA and MIGA become a MEGA partnership. I have been thinking why both America and India need to be great again. What was great about them at one point, what supposedly went wrong so they are now not great, and what the two leaders' method of making the countries great involves. Do the countries become great or do the methods make things worse. Of course, there are polarized opinions in both countries about this. In India, the method of making India Great seems to be to create fear, and victimhood and bring back regressive Hindu cultural ideas (like caste and gender oppression, and xenophobia), and mobilize Hindus towards a Hindu State. Of course, it leaves a trail of religious division, hatred, and violence which the country will take decades to recover from but supposedly it will Make India Great Again. I love seeing how more people are speaking up against this but even more still advocate it and Modi is set to remain in power for a long while yet. 

            It’s fun to watch satirists make fun of both leaders. Though in general, I don’t like comedy that depends on putting someone down. 

            If you are the praying kind please pray for my leg. If you are the type who sends positive healing vibes please do that for me. Love and Thanks to those who do pray. There are all sorts of chronic pains and not all are equal. This leg pain which leads to impaired mobility is unbearable for me. A lot to process on so many levels. 

            

Knee Pain Sucks and A Few Other Thoughts

January 30, 2025

            Except for a day or two over the last tenday my mind has been occupied 80% of the time with knee pain. The pain began on the first Sunday in January after our second karate training of the year and has gone up and down since. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that the pain has taken over 50% of my thoughts for the entire month; I’m constantly worrying about the cause and long-term effects of the pain. 

            In between life has gone on but the quality of it has felt diminished. I have heard people with chronic pain say this.

            Every morning as I sit on my cluttered desk, I have been thinking about the fascist mindset I mentioned last week. I have spent a fair amount of my faffing time reading comments by Hindu right extremists on articles by independent media. I got pulled into in two conversations. One about how patriarchal, hierarchical, exclusionist, anti-women and minorities, the extreme right ideology is. Well, the conversation wasn’t framed that way. It was more a debate about the constitution and the religious book that fascists would want to adopt instead of the constitution. I wanted to know what followers of the ideology felt was good about the book they wanted to base the running of India on. Of course, none of them could answer. The only responses were denial about parts of it (who says the book is anti-women), that it was part of the golden age of Hindu culture and we need to bring that back, or the person would suddenly begin talking about Sharia law or the way the Taliban treat women and ask me to defend it—why I don’t know since I only was talking about the values enshrined in our constitution. The second conversation was about the current need of right-wing Hindus to dig under all the mosques in India which were supposedly built over temples the Mughal invaders destroyed. It meant challenging The Places of Worship Act which was put in place to prevent this sort of endless quest to squabble about whether a mosque should be demolished to establish a temple—doing this of course is a way of showing Muslims their true place in our supposed democracy.  The main arguments there were that Hindus felt a violence was done to them 1000 years ago that has prevented them from expressing their culture even today (this in a country that is 80% Hindu), and that I was self-loathing (I was called that three times by the same person) because I didn’t want to dig up most of India to find temples instead of progressing forward. For them there was no forward progress without this digging. There were no answers to my question about other ways to strengthen our culture besides breaking down mosques and building temples. No answers at all to the fact how this kind of violence would affect both harmony and socio-economic progress. 

            So, I hit walls but what I did understand is that extremism works on the idea of inequality, not just between one group and another but also within the favoured group in which was easy for me (an outsider) to see that there are a few leaders and millions of followers, and that the followers do not know that they are mere minions but feel powerful mouthing the ideas of the few leaders. I don’t understand how they cannot see that they are worshippers and not creators of original thought. I see these dynamics in conversations on fb posts of my American friends—it is the same even when it might seem different. Maybe this attempt to study it is for me a way of staying detached from the pain it brings. For it brings an immense feeling that this is not the world I want to wake up to daily.

            This week after the knee pain got to a 15+++ level I frantically sought help. I met an orthopedic surgeon and got an MRI. Surprisingly on the day I got the MRI my pain level was down to a 3 and I joked that it was a variation of Murphy’s law that once one takes steps to MRI the painful joint it makes you doubt your decision by being almost normal. Anyway, the pain is back at an 8 today so I am glad I got that MRI. This time the weird noises of the MRI lulled me into calm, it felt like ‘me time’ to lie there—the last time I had an MRI the noise was a racket that drove me insane and all I could think of was, when will it stop, when will it stop. This time I had the insight that the need to know this pain came from something I often threw around, sometimes in deep seriousness and sometimes flippantly, that I want to do karate until the day I die. I realized I do, and I want to know how to care for my joints well, and to know the stupid things I should avoid as I age so that they will support my wish to do karate until my dying day. This from a person who still doesn’t identity as a martial arts nerd makes me wonder where it comes from. It is things like this that make me feel like I don't know who I am anymore.

            I am contemplating what else I want to do until I die. What do you want to do until the day you die? 

Lying with my legs under the domed tunnel with displays flashing I also began pondering—is it better to live like you have only one year to live, which means you complete your bucket list, and be spontaneous as you live in the moment not necessarily thinking of the state of the world, or is it better to live like you might live forever, which to me meant focus more on growth and learning, and building better relationships, and structures.

I seem to have swung from being too hermit-ty to overfilling my calendar and am suffering from the overexposure to the external that is so exhausting to introverts. Balance.

I see the ortho later today to hear what he thinks of the state of my right knee and ankle. Wish me luck!

Dreams, Oppressors, Habits and other Misc.

January 22, 2025

            Not much has changed in this week, still doing the same old stuff and hearing the same old news nationally and internationally from last week. My dreams have changed though—I’m dreaming of groups of people, rebels, fighting an oppressive regime. Almost always overpowered but never giving up. I guess the dreams make sense in relation to the external world—with Tru-sk installed and the type of executive orders that were passed on the first days of holding power. With the far right rising in many parts of the world it feels important to counter this force, but I cannot (yet) occupy the mental space of a fascist and feel handicapped by that as I’m not sure how one can one truly fight something one hasn’t understood and experienced from the inside. 

            Tru-sk is the news in the USA, but even independent u-tubers in India covered so many aspects of what this would mean for India and the world.  Rahul Gandhi calling the statements of the fascist leader of an extreme Hindu party seditious stayed in the news here for a while, with some filing cases against Gandhi and others saying he had no right to make any statements considering what his family had done. If that latter thought had come from a troll I would not have paid attention to it but it came from a respected journalist and I found the argument devoid of logic (are you bound to be silent because of the deeds of your ancestors?) as I did some other statements that the writer made. Basically, strong moves were made to protect the fascist leader which is not surprising since the organization he belongs to has been both cultivating hate (mostly against Muslims but also against lower castes and liberals) and spreading false news for decades now. Many say Gandhi needs to change his politics for what he focuses on will not gain him electoral advantage, but I am glad he says what he does. It is true that the issues he picks up are unlikely to get him votes but they are important issues that face the country, but that nobody speaks of, and in that he speaks into forgotten spaces that need attention but are ignored, and the silences of which help rich elite and other leeches prey on the middle and lower classes. I’m not sure he would be great in governing the country (though I feel that anyone might be better than the current incompetent tyrants) but I do see him as a person with humanity and leadership. He speaks for many of us with the issues he raises.

And internally the oppressors and the rebels both are parts of me. Yesterday I drew them. Three oppressors large and imposing, two little rebel figures. I named the oppressors self-doubt, health and pain, daily exhaustion (other days they might have different names). The two rebels were not on the same wavelength though they fought as one. One was labelled ‘I can do it’ (fight the oppressors) and the other ‘I can’t do it’. I suppose we all feel that on some days. That we cannot fight the oppressors—external or internal. I began to realize that one of the reasons I was having such a hard time with my oppressors is that I have withdrawn very deeply from society and being part of it was part of where I sourced my spirit. I need to find balance.

What karate means to me has been on my mind since our annual dojo dinner last weekend—beginning with reflections about the past year I also slipped into the rabbit hole of karate memories from the beginning, the middle, and the ongoing. About an hour ago I saw a friend’s status about the practice of budo. One of the things it mentioned was that it should be practiced for short periods and allowed to accumulate through the day. This reminded me of what one of my teachers had said to me about karate. He had said that for him karate being a way of life meant that you practiced it daily and throughout the day, a bit in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. What he said had struck me and made me dig deeper into both the things I do morning, afternoon, and evening, and what for me made something a way of life. My list included transferring the essence of what the practice meant to me into every other aspect of my life and in the process understanding myself deeply and transforming myself. Though I have often heard people say that martial arts had changed their lives I questioned that in myself—had it changed mine? Often the answer was ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ and that I was who I was with or without it. But lately I see that indeed it has in many ways that I hadn’t realized before. I mean discipline, perseverance are common things that you hear people say that martial arts bring, but for me I wondered if they came from the practice or just from who I wanted to be. Yet there are things that I see have come only from the practice and were not part of my personality growing up—one of these is finishing things. Throughout my life I have left things unfinished, mostly because they felt too easy and I lost interest, or because they were too hard, and I needed a teacher to learn them but couldn’t find a good one. Karate has been hard, and I often have had to learn without a teacher; and this is why karate is where the habit of just showing up without questioning the process has built up. I know places in my life right now, things that I feel I want to give up in, that could benefit from this habit of just showing up. 

Watching the tress outside my window is a way of life for me. I do it every day, morning, afternoon, evening, and at night I watch their silhouettes in the moonlight or the light from being in the midst of a city. 

What makes something a way of life for you? What do you do daily and throughout the day?

The World We Want to Live In?

January 16, 2025

            This morning the sun was ‘properly’ out for the first time since Friday. Sunlight warmed the white sheets on my bed and my bare feet bringing some relief to my aching knees. It’s still a very slow time externally. My mind is still hectic, my dreams chaotic, but I like the lazy pace of most of my days. I am lost and drifty and my dream activity points to something more within. I dream of being at airports and arriving at the boarding gate, after wandering for a while through arcades and theme park rides, and finding that I’ve lost or misplaced my boarding pass. I have my passport, unlike the phase when I used to dream of being in a foreign country without a passport and money. I suppose this is a shift? A part of my identity less nebulous but perhaps what I need to get to my next destination is still missing. I also dream of people partying and then finding themselves in a drunken state, or in a hospital with spine or other bone fractures. Feels like an unpleasant warning of some sort and I am trying to decide what the ‘partying’ is a metaphor for in my life. It feels like there are deeper anxieties that I don’t want to touch? I think because a lot of them are out of my control to change.

            Yes there is enough on the personal level that is worry producing but the state of the world, the future of the world, suddenly feels more uncertain than before (though I did read about the ceasefire between Hamas and Isreal and am eager to know more). India, besides having a ton of problems related to employment, poverty, economics, is going through a conflict of ideologies and not many whose voices will be broadcast and heard, and not many ordinary citizens either whose voices are unlikely to be heard, are speaking about it. For a while now a starlet (as she was called by a reporter) has been saying that India only got independence after 2014, when Modi came to power. She blasts her opinions around a lot but she is of little consequence and people know she makes such statements to butter up the Modi crowd and many have ignored her. But two days ago, the head of a fascist far right religious organization claimed that we got true/real freedom only once a Ram Temple had been consecrated last year. He claimed we might have got political freedom in 1947 but not until last year could Hindus truly be themselves. The temple was built on the ruins of not just a mosque but on the wreckage, on the beginnings of dismantling the secular, democratic, country I love. This man regularly propagates the idea that India is for Hindu’s and should be a Hindu state, with separate laws for minorities and lowered privileges for lower castes and women – though the latter is not yet uttered aloud, but is obvious for anyone who can think. The man has forgotten that without the political freedom that he and his organization do not respect he could never have demolished the mosque and built the temple. And people don’t seem bothered by what he said though it is an insult to all the freedom fighters who got us independence from the British is 1947 and is also another nudge towards directing us to being a Hindu state. 

            Yesterday, the much maligned, the much joked about and trolled Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in Parliament, said that what the man uttered was treason and, in another country, he would have been jailed. He was speaking at the new office of his party, the party from which many our freedom fighters came, and the party which formed our first government and have been endlessly cursed and condemned for the mistakes they made. Gandhi or RaGa as the trolls have named him was attacked by people from the ruling party, journalists (some who think themselves neutral and clear thinking reporters), and of course trolls who said it is he who should be arrested. Most people laugh at him and urge him to take up issues more important to the people. Most people are oblivious to what the fascist head said or what RaGa said. Most people are not talking about this, while I feel that every street corner should be hosting debates about it. The very nature of our country is being changed, the idea that India is for Hindus is introduced daily in small doses, that normalizes it. I guess this is one reason I don’t feel like going home anymore. I mean what am I supposed to talk about with people I meet when the thing uppermost on my mind is this dismantling of democracy. Shouldn’t we all talk incessantly about the world we want to live in, or should we merely live our small joys and let others decide our the larger landscapes and rules we live in and by. 

            Last night I listened a debate in which Rahul was dismissed and labelled as a ‘bad’ leader of the opposition. It was depressing but today I watched a debate in which the participants though outraged were glad that these discussions were now out in the open and that people could talk about, analyze, and form their own judgments. I wish I shared their hope but I feel deeply anguished. With Trump-Musk now holding the kind of power they do the future feels so, so, so unsettled, though I do try to remind myself that ‘this too shall pass’. 

            These thoughts fill up my head and leave little space for ‘creativity’, I feel no urge to write or draw, though I continue to read a fair amount. I notice a desire—to start a podcast to rant about the socio-political things that bother me. I have observed that my sugar urges have lessened, as have my obsessive need to buy a new pen. I didn’t try to stop either, only noted when I had the urges and the mood and circumstances I was in when I felt them and one day they shifted. This is my belief about inner change. You can’t bring it on with discipline but with awareness. I thought I would be writing about the last book I read that impacted me strongly but something else pushed that aside.