Mea Culpa!

Today is the 67th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.....

Yesterday was friendship day!

Where does one thing begin and another end in this rather paradoxical cycle of destruction and retrieval ....

I hear people who support the Modi regime wish away the Gujarat genocide as though it is only a small blemish on an otherwise career-graph of excellence. That families from a particular community were targeted to be annihilated with the precision of deliberated strategies is of course not to be dwelt upon; and in the pro-Modi debates that  propagate him as the golden boy of Gujarat who now needs to move into the prominence of national politics,  this horrifying massacre is continually played down shamelessly.

The memorials at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have photographs that document a chilling account of vengeance and human beastliness that is terrifying to even imagine, let alone confront as a historical reality. We continue to pretend that such attacks on human rights and life are few and far between. What is frightening to realise is the human capacity to harbor the desire, and encourage the wielding of power, as tool to wreck fear and destruction  in order to get into positions of control; to terrorise.

Acid attacks, rape, bonded labour, organ thefts, land scams, fake encounters by the police, sexual harassment by politicians, indifference and apathy .....you name it, the list is endless. Controlled lawlessness that supports corrupted governance, makes the life cycle of countless citizens in different countries hold a hopelessness, because no election really brings the change that keeps at bay the viciousness of greed.

I hold my optimism close to my heart....yet.................

A girl commits suicide from the despair of harassment.

Children die from lack of medical care.

An old woman runs from pillar to post to try and access her dead husband's pension of Rs. 250/-.

A child dies from falling through a hole in a moving school bus.

A small boy suffocates to death in the bowels of the earth because an unused bore well is left open.

A care giver of the state  molests the children he has intend to protect.

A teacher makes a child lick her urine to teach her the discipline not to wet her bed.

A woman is stripped naked by the police to teach her shame.

A son abandons his widowed mother because she is a burden to his freedom and wealth.

A family burns alive their son's wife.

A woman aborts her girl child.

A whistle blower is killed for his/her honesty.

A farmer is forced into debt whilst grains lie rotting from want of conscience.

I am shamed into silence and

My optimism feels drained.

I am haunted by the photograph of a woman,  

fleeing down a road with her body burning body,

after the atom bomb exploded 67 years ago in Japan. 

Each year the cycle of violence continues.....

.....and we help perpetuate it......

all the time.....everywhere.