There is a philosopher who reading my blog posts commends me on my joy in realising in experience the many claims in Indian tradition, who advices me to work in freelance rather than in constraining environment of academia. Jubilated and intoxicated I let my guard down and stereotype a whole tradition and way of living as cynical and the philosopher stops responding.
There are two philosophers of science who are probably wondering at a new found interpretation of a principle which shaped our modern science of cosmos and are not sure to either dismiss it as trivial or consider it to be of profound import.
And there is a girl in some corner of the world surely waiting for me to knock on her door and me who doesn't understand the constraints of girlhood and wonders on the special role they have to bring life into the world and nourish and cherish it.
And then there is this passage -
"According to the National Crime Records Bureau, a crime is committed against a Dalit by a non-Dalit every sixteen minutes; every day, more that four Untouchable women are raped by Touchables; every week, thirteen Dalits are murdered and six Dalits are kidnapped. In 2012 alone, the year of the Delhi gang-rape and murder, 1574 Dalit women were raped (the rule of thumb is that only 10 percent of rapes or other crimes against Dalits are ever reported), and 651 Dalits were murdered. That's just the rape and butchery. Not the stripping and parading naked, the forced shit-eating (literally), the seizing of land, the social boycotts, the restriction of access to drinking water. These statistics wouldn't include, say, Bant Singh of Punjab, a Mazhabi Dalit Sikh, who in 2005 had both his arms and a leg cleaved off for daring to file a case against the men who gang-raped his daughter. There are no separate statistics for triple amputees." - The Doctor and the Saint, Arundhati Roy
And the world stopped and I lie almost paralysed overtaken by emotion. What dreams have I been weaving of ridding the world of all evils imagining writing, nay day dreaming, from the comforts of my parent's home. Being 30 and still with not a clue what the next day would bring. I shudder, nay I can't continue reading for I know not what would this dreamer do to me. Taking out of context, I almost dismissed Ambedkar to be too bitter and sour and taken refuge in believing that there is definite greatness in Indian civilisation. But four pages in, this tiny book holds up such a magnificent mirror.
I would have consoled myself had this been fiction but these are facts and with what matter of factness she writes the passage. And what do I but dream with no hope but to find resonance somewhere, to hit a chord somewhere and bring to end this shameful spectre we run in name of humanity. But what else can I do.
And tears have not stopped flowing.
