Written by Bipasha
Edited by Sunaina
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Oh, how has the world Progressed!
Alas! Had the world had this shade of colour? Perpetually?
To be fair, yes. It breaks my heart to compose, how perpetuity rains on the surface of the Earth. It is Carthage, it is the Congo, it is the Shias, it is the Dalits. Perhaps, it might be you and me, someday. Do you see it? Can you hear it?
I profess, social media has been a weapon of mass destruction rather than a tool to draw a congruity amidst our quotients of race, colour, class, caste and innumerable other factors, say “x”. The youth has taken a backseat. How many objective and universal truths do we see, until a political party changes those? Who is this authority?
I had once composed a drama, where all these questions had been pertinent to the ancient, medieval and modern timelines, and if there is something beyond them? Has it initiated its inception?
Lately, every hour, the numbers on the TV channels confirm, the first world countries have been tearing apart. They are tearing me apart, with themselves. I shame them. I pity them. Our education professes equality when we preach inequality. The trauma of my ancestry seems to haunt my nights, even when my blood is inside my skin and not on the soil. Where does this end?
While half of the world has been busy learning Artificial Intelligence, to secure a daily meal, the other half is writing names on the bodies of their children, paving a way for us to study the narratives of identity politics. Then comes the Powerful, who engage in uncountable dialogues on a round table, with our permission (What permission? OH! Elections!). Isn’t it indeed fascinating to read the novels of patronages of the Powerful on the ashes of the remnants of the past?
This is not a satire. The city of my present residence, along with many other residences, disappoints me with its reducing numbers of voters, amidst the influx of the so-called Youth. I tell my mother, “I see kids in 20s generating luxury as a topping on their pizzas”, and she tells me “दुनिया बड़ी ज़ालिम है” (the world is very cruel), and the fact that we would starve millions and trillions to death in the name of fireworks named “advancement” is one reality I loathe myself to have made peace with.
As I compose this piece of art, some children in Rafah are walking miles in search of their parents, some teenagers are trying to stop their tears and bring a curve of gay to their lips on Ramadan, the soil is reeking of their sorrow, drenched from the tears of all the generations, of all the survivors. Every second the clock strikes in the dining rooms of riches, the children deploying their wit, touch their refined delicacies, while the rags at a corner militarize themselves without any weapon, to get looted and plundered of their “resources” and dignity. They do not find out who has done it, it is verily the Dark Continent. Every class I sit in, with a pen, locked in between my fingers, to write an essay, I remember the women from the land, right beside mine, who do not dare to look at a nib, let alone holding one and holding on. The planet is on a path of transcendence, into a colony of refugees while the capital flows will colour the colourless. I would speak louder and the loudest for the people in the back, but for how long? It is nearly time, when I step onto the “back” too. I drowned. Do we talk, Then? For me? Or for them? Or for all of us? Is my birth on a palette of questions too? Who is at fault? Our Melanin or our bloodline? Science or Society?
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