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.