Skip to main content

Disconnected?



I was startled to receive an invitation to participate in Egypt's national uprising against their government led by President Hosni Mubarak. What could I, an Indian, do about the issue while sitting at my desk in New Delhi while people continued to bleed to death in Cairo demanding food, a right to better health, jobs and an overall upliftment from poverty? I tried but I simply could get my thoughts in place to get along with my day as if nothing had happened. I started reading up about the situation in Cairo and Suez and as the images began to show me the face of rebellion, I knew that there had to be something, someway to connect.

I write this post on my blog as a beginning, to register my voice along with a million others against violence of any form in any part of the planet. The story of Egypt is not the first I feel deeply connected to right now, I will not forget the riots of Jammu and Kashmir last year. While the rest of the country was basking in the joys of football, an eight-year-old I knew was burnt alive with her family. The shocking realisation of how fragile a life I lead hadn't soaked my soul in completion before I found ways and means to distract myself yet again.

On most occasions I wonder if I am among those very few people who have a serious issue with violence, especially violence towards the generally unconcerned mass. But I also feel that the rage I feel inside me at this moment will soon subside and I will yet again, resign the fate of this world to a higher power - completely overlooking the fact that the higher power installed in me the hope of a better tomorrow. So what will it be? Will I go back to the workstation and forget about the thousands of people who continue their struggle for a dignified life? Will I say my prayers for them so that they may attain peace? What will I do? I do not know... I am yet to understand.


Photos: Mariam Solayman, a member of an Egyptian activist group, shouts anti-government slogans in front of a police cordon during a demonstration outside the press syndicate in central Cairo on January 27, 2011. Demonstrations demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, in power since 1981, have raged since Tuesday in several Egyptian cities, with the biggest clashes in Cairo and Suez. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

A protester runs in front of a burning barricade during a demonstration in Cairo January 28, 2011. Police and demonstrators fought running battles on the streets of Cairo on Friday in a fourth day of unprecedented protests by tens of thousands of Egyptians demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's three-decade rule. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction to the Journalism Pathway

My career in journalism started out with an internship at India's prestigious Indian Express newspaper in New Delhi. The office, which took me well over an hour to commute to, was even then, a formidable force in journalism in India. Still an wide-eyed undergraduate with a theoretical grasp of the field, my first and only project over 2 weeks for the organisation, left a huge impact on my career.  The idea of going into journalism came from my English teacher, Mrs Moss. One day, close to the completion of my 12th grade, she was suggesting career options for some of us to explore. She looked at me and said, "Given your love for talking, you should consider a career path in law or in media." To put this into context, I was a student with good grades in an English medium school in one of the most backward states of India, Bihar. Any further educational aspirations would take me outside the town that I had grown up in, as was the case for all my classmates. Most of my peers w...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Meaning of Love

Late in the night, I was sitting at my computer yet again (yes, production woes continue)when I see an ex-colleague online. We start having a mundane conversation and he asks me somewhere towards the end, "What is love? How is one supposed to feel when they are in love?" I couldn't give him an answer in complete honesty (he wasn't interested anyways) but I went back to re-feeling, if there is any such possibility, the feeling of being in love. The first time I actually felt love as a woman was on my first Valentine's Day with my husband. Since we spent most of our waking hours together, we had a pretty clear understanding of what we liked or disliked. Despite it being almost a year later, it was difficult to surprise each other. And yet, when he walked in through the door of the flat I used to live it, cake in one hand, flowers in another and a shy, reluctant smile on his face to let me know how bothersome the whole ordeal had been... I felt very special. He sat d...
3 comments
Read more

Age of Innocence

Lost (as always) by the window seat on the bus ride to office, I felt a little tug on my shoulder. Kids!! There's always those days when a screeching child is being fiddled over by the mother who is making a more sincere effort towards making it all look very appealing to the irritated fellow passengers than calming the apple of her eye. My flow of anguish was met by a pair of solemn eyes next to me belonging to a little girl no more than six years of age who muttered a very quiet 'Sorry' under her breath as she looked away. Her mother seemed unwell and had taken the only remaining vacant seat in the bus and her father stood protectively beside her. The little girl looked tired but knew better than asking for some space to sit down next to her mother. She had found a little space to squeeze into between her mother's knees and was trying very hard not to express her discomfit. It was not hard to see that she had learnt to adjust her requirements to the needs of those aro...
3 comments
Read more