Day 17 of 27 — Darkness and Spirit

July 7, 2021

 

My fatigue has peaked after Father Stan’s death and the response from the Central Government to criticism about it. They’ve kept it simple. All they say is, ‘The process of law was followed.’ 

 

There is more I want to say about this but I feel my roar becoming a bleat before my lungs can push it out into the world. My feelings whimper out and my body flattens like a balloon without air. I signed the petition demanding the laws that kept Stan Swamy and many others in jail without the glimmer of a trial be reviewed. The way the laws are being used to punish and frighten voices criticising the Centre be reviewed. The citizens of India deserve better. 

 

Many feel that the rot is too deep and don’t see the point in these petitions. Many sweep such things under their king sized beds, and ignore the elephant sized dust ball that sleeps with them each night. Many others won’t smell the shit rising around them and delight in the fragrance of the fading plastic rose.

 

I feel at war with my own country-people. These people say I am a BJP hater, a Modi hater. The BJP lost their innocence in my eyes when Advani divided the country over a non-existing temple in 1992. Modi became the bogey man in 2002 after the Gujarat genocide. And though he came back in 2014 cloaked in white sheep-wool, I smelt his blood lust. 

 

All this lot want is the cultural realignment of India into a Hindu state. Not interested in development or economics or employment or poverty or health or education. Just one thing. And power of course. Absolute corruptive power. 

 

I am repeating myself. I echo the tiredness of the activists I see on the shows I watch. I feel the haul has already been long and it is not near over. I have been engulfed in leaden sadness all day. The wily government is winning. They package everything repressive they do in a benign wrapping and with the help of their IT cells fool many. The emergency of Indira Gandhi was solid, material, very visible. The Government and its supporters keep posting articles about it. But activists who fought it say it was declared and so it could be combatted, this undeclared emergency is a darkness we can never emerge from. 

But then a friend sent me a poster on WhatsApp. The people of India are calling Stan Swamy’s death a legal assassination. They will switch their lights off between 8:00 and 8:05 pm. They will fight on.

 

And as I said some months ago — one day the Modi-Shah types will be dust in the earth. I too will be dust. But this spirit of life, of unwillingness to be suppressed will live on. 

Day 16 of 27 — Loss of Innocence

July 6, 2021

In November 2020 I’d blogged about Father Stan, a 84 year old with Parkinson’s, who had been arrested by the National Investigative Agency under the UAPA, an anti-terror law, and incarcerated without hope of bail in Taloja jail. He had approached a court to get a straw or a sipper-cup so that he could drink water as his hands shook due to his disease. The NIA had taken 3 weeks to reply to his petition and provide him with a sipper. 

 

The NIA opposed his bail ferociously even when his health deteriorated. They stated in court, ‘There is no evidence that his health is poor.’ But in all likelihood what there is no evidence of is materials and a case to convict Father Stan. He wasn’t present at the place where he was supposed to have given speeches that incited violence. But under UAPA a person can be held for 180 days without the need to produce evidence in court. Guilty until proven innocent is what the UAPA treats you as. The conviction rate for those arrested under the UAPA, since 2016, is 2%. Yet an increasing number of ‘terrorists’ continue to be booked under it, and held for months or years (they are simply re-arrested) without bail. I can cite case after case. This Orwellian Law even classifies dissenting thoughts as a crime. 

 

Father Stan’s health deteriorated in Taloja jail. A place which should house 2500 inmates, and less than 1400 in covid times, housed 3000 without a single allopathic doctor in the facility. Moving him to hospital was opposed when he became severely ill. He contracted covid and passed on yesterday. Even when he was in the ICU the NIA opposed bail. 

 

I watched three shows about his death last night. Lawyers and activists said that the NIA knew he would die, they wanted him to die. His death was a message to dissenters against the government, ‘We can hold you until you die.’ The friend I chatted with about Father Stan this morning said, ‘Not even a message, they (NIA and the Home Minister under whom they act) enjoy the power to be cruel.’ 

 

I hadn’t thought of that but it is possibly true. I have become numb to the inhuman brutality of those currently in power. But the viciousness of their spokespersons still shocked me. There were BJP/RSS ilk on the shows who said, ‘I have no feeling for him. People like him deserve to be in jail.’ 

 

Meanwhile on another show people debated the RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat’s statements, ‘Islam is not under threat in India. Muslims have no need to be afraid. Hindus and Muslims have the same DNA.’ This as Muslim men are lynched by RSS cadre. On that show the RSS spokesperson talked about how the RSS ideology was about Unity. 

 

I don’t need, anymore, to understand the unfeelingness of those in power. But I cannot fathom the barbarism of their followers in turning a blind eye. Of wallowing in the gaslighting and perpetuating the savagery. 

 

Gutted.

Day 15 of 27 — Black Marks on Blank Pages

July 5, 2021

The day began easy. No alarms, a cup of tea with my dream journal on a mellow cloudy morning. It progressed at a relaxed pace. Chat with sis, things going ok there. Outside the wind blew and cooled the tropical day. I had cancelled my work meeting as I was isolating after my friend was quarantined. I hadn’t experienced such a chilled day in a while and I thought about reading my old manuscript. These two weeks of writing the blog had revived the motivation to revisit it, then decided to wait a day to two till the intent built further. I didn’t want to start and then have the desire fizzle out. I pulled out my sketch book. 

 

During the lockdown phase of the pandemic, I had found myself dabbling with all of the dry sketching materials I had purchased over the years, but never used. When curbs lifted I went to the art store and bought a bunch of B and H pencils, kneaded erasers, fine liners, and a couple of sketch books. I eyed the gorgeous coloured pencils—this store had the full Derwent ranges—but only bought raw umber, ultramarine blue, Chinese white, a burnishing pencil and a blending pencil. I decided to use my old basic Faber Castells till I knew whether coloured pencil was the medium I wanted to swim deeper into. I was still nervous to try messy, rather what I felt was messy, water colour and acrylics.  

 

Over the last months what I kept going back to was black pen, both the technical pens and fountain pens. The simplicity of the medium and the monochrome that could create such complex sketches was what drew me in. It relaxed me to experiment with making black marks on white pages to create shape, form, texture, light and shadow. And it was cool that all I had to carry when I went out were my Faber Castell medium nib, and Platinum Preppy fine nib, pens to draw or write. 

 

In writing I am searching, to do something different than I what I have been doing so far. My first two books—the fantasy series—had a big story, with a strong plot, a huge landscape, and a ton of characters. The third one had fewer characters and focused on their emotional changes through a stormy time. I think I want to do something even less complicated now. I am drawn to reading short books with just a character or two and a simple story where language is used to create beauty, intensity and truth. I think poetry does that beautifully but somehow feel an edge to being the creator of poems. I am seeking a form that will take me deeper into observing the marks I make on blank days, of knowing fully this life I am living in a time when meaning has leached out of this pandemic—perhaps soon to be post-pandemic—world, where I find myself far from purpose. 

Day 14 of 27 — Half Done

July 4, 2021

My tiredness feels immense today. It has felt so all day. Stomach cramps, probably due to the antibiotics, kept me up during the night and then, after the two hours of karate on zoom this morning I felt flattened. 

 

Luckily I didn’t have much to do, to think through, or even feel all day. I lay on the sofa and finished reading a book I had started a few days ago. It is the story of a woman who wants to write about the paintings in a museum she cleans in. She marries a rich man and is exposed to theatre, ballet, holidaying, and new experiences. She keeps going back to the museum and writes about the paintings. We don’t really know what else she is writing about but it feels as if she is writing to become herself. That feeling resonated. 

 

Today I said to my spouse that it feels like this little, little virus is zooming in closer and closer. It’s been a threat all year to all of us, and though all around me it has also felt distant. Then all in the space of ten days first my sister and others in her home get infected, then I am swabbed and though I know I don’t have covid I feel anxious till I get the negative PCR, and finally someone I am in mask-less contact with has a close contact with someone who tests positive. Wondering what the next escalation in this will be. 

 

I did feel the inner saboteur at work today. Mostly saying something like, ok so you want to disrupt my plans eh, what if I just don’t make any? Or, before you mess me up, I’ll do it myself. Or, you really have nothing worthwhile to say. Don’t drag this out. Just stop writing.

 

Whereas I believe some of this. Whereas I feel like I am plateauing in some way, repeating myself, and not really saying anything important, I do also feel the need to finish the experiment. I am at the half way mark and from previous experiences with projects I do know this can be the most discouraging of times. 

 

Whatever it catalyses, this experiment is a gift. For a while I’ve been aching for a writers retreat. A blocked out period of time when I let all my other concerns and activities dissolve and focus on aspects of writing and being a writer. This daily writing of  about 500 blog-words has been the closest to that. It’s a focused space and time, out from the anxious days, dedicated to whatever writing brings. I am noticing the things—issues and people—that crash my writing time, and also those that are allies to it. I beginning to know how to create boundaries and carve out more such mini-retreats. 

Day 13 of 27 — Covid Disposes

July 3, 2021

Covid still is nipping at my calves and constantly slowing down forward motion. I’m getting really angry now. Grrrr!

 

It began when my sister called and announced that she had covid. Several days felt ‘cancelled’ as we tried to figure out the best course of action, and then this week when that was settling I was swabbed and sent home and more plans disrupted. 

 

This afternoon a friend who I had trained with earlier this morning messaged me saying that the person she was with the evening before tested positive. And so it begins again. Isolate and go crazy trying to figure out what to do next. Also wonder if you might be quarantined. 

 

Has this happened to you? It has to me a few times over the year. It feels like there are yet no clear guidelines on what to do when you may have been exposed but are low risk so the health ministry does not contact you. Yet out of feeling responsible and caring for the safety of others you feel you should isolate and minimise contact. Don’t go out, don’t train in the gym. Should I go to the grocery store for tea that is running out, or even take a walk. Sometimes I wonder if it is best to hole up and just do nothing till these covid times are past. The hermit part of me would be happy with that. It’s the thinking and choosing and constantly being alert is what keeps the body and mind hyper and unhappy, and very tired.

 

More than angry I am confused. Particularly about decisions to make for the dojo. We keep up with all the recommendations and curbs the sports council puts out. Sometimes I want to be extra careful and put restrictions beyond what the council says. I find myself planning no contact trainings but people also want to get into partner training and I feel like I am not allowing people who want do that to train properly. It’s been a year of having to adapt and change — zoom, outdoors with distancing, indoors with masks, and so on — and it’s wearing me down. 

 

In the ‘winter’ months I see spectacular sunsets sitting right here on this sofa, but this time of year the sun ‘moves’ southwards and all I see is the mantle of golden light falling over all that is in front of me, while the sun sets somewhere out of my vision.