The 'Other'
Standing in front of the flag, the national anthem playing somewhere, the flames burning, bodies charring against the backdrop of a blood-red sky , she is alone crying.
The tragedy has not allowed her to realise until now, when the blood-streaked dust has settled on the lifeless bodies, when last screams have become last words muttered softly into the ground, she who has never known tragedy begins to understand it now.
'Who am I?' she thinks, salwar kameez drenched in blood- what godforsaken hell has she stepped in, why has she survived out of all the others, why do they hate her so much, why kill my mother father brother sisters?
This has taken away something from her- a part of her will never ever be whole again- this ache in her that will pass on to her daughter and her daughter's daughter.
"Remember me to them," her brother said, his turban gone, his hair all shorn cut off bald desecrated humiliated painful. Blood blood blood trickled down his face leaving a streak of rust coloured suffering on his face.
"Kaun? For who?"
Who else will remember this tragedy? Who forgot? Who knew? Who cared?
Despite his suffering, her veerji, his brave face heroic and saintlike in the twilight moments of life, seems to glow- he holds her hand the same hand that fed her panipuri, gulab jamun that same hand reassures her even though it is soon fading from this earthly hell.
'For the ones who will come after. Remember me to them- and never forget.'
She wants to say something but now, at this pivotal moment, words cannot will not come. And then, when they do come, silently in the night, it is too late.
What will she think of her granddaughter if she was here to see- this girl who wants to lose her religion, her culture to become rootless. She who has been called 'paki', her long hair in a made fun of, her who tries to call herself Sunny instead of Simran, girl who was always other.
The girl who went to church secretly, eating the bread of christ, hating ashamed sad guilty, wondering why on earth she had been brown, born Punjabi, born Sikh, born girl- born lugging around the guilt the fear the burden of centuries of 'being done wrong', born the 'other'. Never knowing until almost too late the value of sacrifices never feeling proud of her heritage never saying , "Yes, yes, YES! I am SIMRAN KAUR. YES!" until the day she read her grandmother's diary. Running always running she keeps running from who she is until she cannot run from it anymore runs smack dab into the hot pulsating heart-of-shame which is the 'Other'- the part of society minority the part different and the part ashamed of who they are because they are different.
She who now sits in gurdhuwaras not churches, she who has a voice different from all the other voices woven in the thread of life, the hurt the pain giving new life to love. This story begotten from her grandmother who remembered him to her, she passes this to her daughter, and softly with love and also a great deal of pain, 'Never forget. You are Other. '
And she would have it no other way.
The tragedy has not allowed her to realise until now, when the blood-streaked dust has settled on the lifeless bodies, when last screams have become last words muttered softly into the ground, she who has never known tragedy begins to understand it now.
'Who am I?' she thinks, salwar kameez drenched in blood- what godforsaken hell has she stepped in, why has she survived out of all the others, why do they hate her so much, why kill my mother father brother sisters?
This has taken away something from her- a part of her will never ever be whole again- this ache in her that will pass on to her daughter and her daughter's daughter.
"Remember me to them," her brother said, his turban gone, his hair all shorn cut off bald desecrated humiliated painful. Blood blood blood trickled down his face leaving a streak of rust coloured suffering on his face.
"Kaun? For who?"
Who else will remember this tragedy? Who forgot? Who knew? Who cared?
Despite his suffering, her veerji, his brave face heroic and saintlike in the twilight moments of life, seems to glow- he holds her hand the same hand that fed her panipuri, gulab jamun that same hand reassures her even though it is soon fading from this earthly hell.
'For the ones who will come after. Remember me to them- and never forget.'
She wants to say something but now, at this pivotal moment, words cannot will not come. And then, when they do come, silently in the night, it is too late.
What will she think of her granddaughter if she was here to see- this girl who wants to lose her religion, her culture to become rootless. She who has been called 'paki', her long hair in a made fun of, her who tries to call herself Sunny instead of Simran, girl who was always other.
The girl who went to church secretly, eating the bread of christ, hating ashamed sad guilty, wondering why on earth she had been brown, born Punjabi, born Sikh, born girl- born lugging around the guilt the fear the burden of centuries of 'being done wrong', born the 'other'. Never knowing until almost too late the value of sacrifices never feeling proud of her heritage never saying , "Yes, yes, YES! I am SIMRAN KAUR. YES!" until the day she read her grandmother's diary. Running always running she keeps running from who she is until she cannot run from it anymore runs smack dab into the hot pulsating heart-of-shame which is the 'Other'- the part of society minority the part different and the part ashamed of who they are because they are different.
She who now sits in gurdhuwaras not churches, she who has a voice different from all the other voices woven in the thread of life, the hurt the pain giving new life to love. This story begotten from her grandmother who remembered him to her, she passes this to her daughter, and softly with love and also a great deal of pain, 'Never forget. You are Other. '
And she would have it no other way.
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