dharmic expressions

vaibahv wasnik’s comment on this pic: and these are going to be life givers. they hate 85 percent of the country, the sc/st/obcs so much that they cannot even tolerate people from these communities as co-doctors. how can these be expected to treat the illnesses of these same people.

kuffir, calls this picture “the ordinary faces of hate.”

i recently read an academic paper which was laboring to make a point about UN recognizing caste as a race issue and trying to decipher the relation and difference between race and caste. this is what this picture made me write “caste is not a sibling of race, it is not even the parent, it is the God of all forms of discriminations.”  just look at those women’s faces, there is no hate, there is only a supreme conviction of righteousness, such pure dharmic expressions. who needs conical masks and nooses, who needs to disguise hate that is so pure that it does not even require the face to contort into a negative expression.

Its not him

even before i reach the periphery of the school playground, my eyes scanning the variously colored heads to pick out the black haired boy, voices call out his name “your mom is here” and he comes towards me not on a run, but with careful strides, his arm held up in midair, gently turning it, his eyes glued on a tiny creepy crawly, concentrating hard on  not disturbing that little life taking a stroll on his arm. And reaches me to share that moment. His name is not Mangal. 

gorges that were frozen in a winter landscape now gush through the early summer, we seek out glens where the water takes a breather under cool maple trees, peering into the crystal clear depths, he asks “is it true, that if we dip our feet in one ocean we’ve touched all the oceans?” I tease, “the water in your bottle must have been the water that dried up in your grandfather’s village pond, 50 years ago, or it could be the water from the hyacinth choked artificial lake in amma’s city back home, it is not just oceans, all the worlds water is touched.” He is eight not eleven.

on a quite trail in the woods, where my subtropical eyes expect dangerous creatures, instead it has story book animals; deers, rabbits, foxes, squirrels and chipmunks. i come here not to study the forest but the silence, breaking it, he says “big cars are more polluting.” i point to the bracket fungus on a rotting log saying  ”those release almost the same kind of gases and they have been at it since before the wheels got a motor” . To to his accusing, so? I smile a “i just wanted you to know that and this“. He’ll never be  described as a servant ever. 

we read a book about the dreams of a young woman who journeyed in the back of a train on hard wooden seats, separate from the white folks and he asks  ”what is a whiz? Oh, Bessie Coleman being good at numbers must have helped her become a good pilot.” My thoughts wander to what his response might be on seeing Mangal eating his lunch? Would he ask  ”are there no social services vans that come to pick up people ill treating children, in India? Or will he ask what happens when the the law is broken? Or will he just ask which school does Mangal go to?”

only the grossest element in the picture repulses us adults into expressing or not expressing our feelings of helplessness.  In our silence about all the other elements of injustices, things gone so wrong in our society glaring at us in the picture, lies the exposition to the levels we have  stooped to in our expectations from our systems -when it comes to the children who are not ours.

He could have been him.

and I Mangal’s mother. Her quite anger consumes me. I will my mind into imagining that mother and son are right now, sharing a moment of wonder at a rain drop at the tip of a leaf, swelling into a perfect pearl drop, catching the luminous moonbeam and their synchronous smiles before it drops gently into the grass. Darling, it is the same water that made us.

At the table

Images

for the Indians who feign ignorance

for Indians who are cleverly in denial

for Indian do-gooders who are blind

for genteel sophisticated Indians                                                                                                   

for rich Indians who flaunt their connections

for Indian academics who pass off privilege as merit

for Indians who are not at that table

for Indians who are at different tables at different times

for Indians on whom the camera did not focus

for internet accessing Indians who stumble on this blog and wonder what it is all about

for Indians who feel comfortable seeing this child under the table

This is the reason you feign ignorance, and court denial but mostly some of you are seeking out these images, if not,  how would you feel superior, kind, generous and continue doing the myriad good deeds to save the world?

While enjoying the rush of satisfaction on seeing this image, you can go ahead and forget that some of those under the table types have moved out, who know exactly how learned and kind you are. And they know how different you are from those two men at the table.  But do keep in mind they have better things to do than  educate you out of your real ignorance. 

Bangles

Glass bangles of two colors, her wages bought

Reflecting little colored rays,

Clinked to all her moves.

Like the radiance of my child’s face,

Like the innocence of her voice; Amma thought.

Admired then frowned, my daughter,

they don’t fit close to the wrist,

They’ll break in the fields,

on the backyard washing stone,

under the tap, set outside

on utensils, that’ll need a re-rinse,

to wash away your touch.

“buy smaller ones, they’ll last longer”, she said.

 

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