Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Peace and Protest

She was 2-3 when she lost her father. His body was brought home in a coffin. And she wondered what kind of wooden box was that and how can her father be in it so peacefully despite so much of noise around him. She wondered if she touched his body perhaps he might wake up. She knew he died but she wasn't old enough to understand what death was. Her mother told her that the box is called as The Dream. She grew up believing that her dad went inside a Dream. But slowly enough, the feeling of someone took away her father grew inside her. After that, there were many days, when she believed that that day might be the day when her father might walk back in. But he never did. He was a martyr. He was शहीद.

By the age 5-6, all she managed to understand was her father died in a war with Pakistan. She quickly learnt to hate Pakistan. The hatred grew to such a level that one day in a market when she saw a women in burkha, she made connections in her mind and assumed that's the place she can take the revenge. For her, burkha equaled Muslim equaled Pakistan. And she picked up a knife from one of the shops and ran towards the lady to stab her!

She was just 5-6. Her mother was nearby and she caught her well in time before she did anything. Nobody else noticed.

Her mother gave her different channels to vent the rage. She focused in studies. She got into sports, played at international level. She played with Pakistani players too. Wondered but noticed they weren't much different than her. It took her time but she grew up to understand that her father died in a war with Pakistan. Pakistan didn't kill him, war did. After several years she said exactly that online and a but later than that, it brought so many trolls drawing knife and sword and what not and running towards her, with graphic details of what they wanted to do to her.

She was 20 something and they were not of age 5 or 6.

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Peace and Protest

#myIndianLife

Some parts of the stories stay with us,... and some of them haunt. 

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