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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ESSAYS
Blame The Women
Dazed Visions
The Doors That Flung Open
The Intricacies Of A Camaraderie
An Excerpt From The Life Of A Histrionic Feminist
POETRY
The Orange Tree
Violet
The Pyre of Resurrection
OTHERS
Carter
PHOTOGRAPHY
BLOG

BLAME THE WOMEN

The date was 31 December, 2016, New Year’s Eve. Men and women were thrilled to celebrate
the onset of the New Year. Thousands of people took to the streets of Bengaluru’s MG Road
and Brigade Road to revel at the occasion.I There was a heavy police presence everywhere so as
to avoid giving certain miscreants the opportunity to capitalize on the incidence of the massive
commotion to do something inappropriate and vile. In spite of all the so called security
measures, numerous women were groped, harassed and practically mauled on 31 December
2016. Despite CCTV footage and numerous eye witness accounts, the deputy commissioner of
police said they did not receive any distress calls regarding the clearly grave situation, which
seems highly unlikely. The whole thing reeks of a cover up by the authorities in an attempt to
efface their incompetence.

As shameful as I am at the idea of my country being identified with sexual assaults, what really
made me want to be swallowed whole by the ground was what came after this despicable
affair. A man named Abu Azmi, who happens to be the Samajvadi Party leader, asserted that
the only party to blame for this whole ordeal was the women who were harassed.II He went on
to suggest that a woman’s attire is to be perceived as a culpable cause for her assault. What I
interpreted from his insights is that the amount of skin a woman covers by her clothing is
directly proportional to the amount of respect she should get. What a novel idea to interpret
consent, to measure the dignity to be bestowed onto someone. The fact that the women were
out late, “beyond sunset celebrating December 31 with a man who isn’t their husband or
brother”, somehow justifies the behavior of the accused, well the hypothetically accused,
seeing as how no reports were filed with the police.

Victim blaming is nothing new, especially not in India. If a woman is raped, she is seen as
damaged goods. Pre marital sex is perceived as a blasphemy, and Abu Azmi has in the past
suggested death penalty for the women engaging in intercourse before marriage. The truly sad
part is, he was not the only one who made such comments. Even in this day and age, there are
still sections of society comprising of both men and women, who believe that rape and sexual
assault are completely preventable if the women were to try hard enough to work for their
safety. So in nutshell, the burden of culpability always falls on the female gender. If she gives
her consent to a physical relationship before marriage, she is promiscuous and immoral. If she
is raped, she was probably too lax with her safety and she should not have been out so late or
she should not have been intoxicated in a setting with members of the opposite sex or she
should not have been anywhere outside of her house after sundown or she should not have

dared to walk through an obscure little street which is devoid of any traffic by herself, even if it
was daytime. It is always the woman’s fault.

Patriarchy is one of the core foundational values of Indian society. Directly or indirectly, it is
instilled into the malleable and impressionable minds of growing children. They are either out
rightly told that they’re better than their sisters or other females in their vicinity and as such
they are worthy of more attention and opportunities, or they see the way their families treat
their female counterparts and formulate this idea on their own. The majority of elements of an
Indian society adhere to a very strict misogynistic benchmark, which without faltering even
once, always favors men. Let me draw an example from my personal life.

On 6 Feb, 2017, my cousin got married. Arranged marriage is a very common thing here and is
still the practiced norm for a significant number of weddings in the country. The groom and his
family happen to live in the same city as me and my family. The match was fixed in September
of last year and after finalizing the details with the groom’s family, my uncle, whose daughter
was going to be married decided to visit us along with a couple of other relatives. Seeing as how
my cousin is barely 25 and had only just finished medical school, my mother thought it only
appropriate to ask him why he was in such a hurry to get her married. The reply was
depressing, but not alarming. He said that a 25 year old unmarried girl seems like such a burden
to him, and that he just wants to fulfill his responsibility of arranging a suitable match and get it
over with. Following this enlightening revelation, my oldest uncle proceeded to remark how it’s
only ideal for every girl to be married by the time she’s 25 otherwise the proposals start going
downhill. What disconcerted me the most was the fact that the parent, who claims to love her
daughter unconditionally, stars seeing her as a burden because she has attained a certain age
but is still not betrothed. The façade of eternal, unconditional love shatters when it comes with
an expiration date and conditions applied. Now it is worth mentioning that men in India also
face this marital pressure from their families. But there is no stipulated age that is seen as the
appropriate threshold that should be avoided, or at least I have never come across such a
stipulation. My oldest cousins got married at over 30 years of age, and they only got married of
their own volition. There was no filial pressure involved up until the point of their own
inclination.

These general practices differentiating between the two sexes only elucidate the much
engraved sense of prejudice brandished into the minds of people and the blatant disregard for
the liberty and choices of almost half of the country’s population. The paradigm of the Indian
society is a very intricate design of male chauvinism, inequity and sexism, which is so lucid and
distinguishable in the older generations, but to claim that these ideas are not harbored in the
minds of younger generations would be fallacy. Though these notions and thought processes
are more latent, they still shape the decisions and choices of the youth.

Children’s minds are influenced not just by their parents, who are their first teachers, but also
the omnipresent and very potent media. Times are changing, and people are adopting a more
liberal, or ‘westernized’ approach. Some people condemn this westernization, because they
claim this new ideology is corrupting our culture, our very rich culture that has been the corner
stone of our society for a very long time. People like to draw examples from our holy books to
propose a much simpler and peaceful time where society was not so unstable and crime was
virtually unheard of because people respected one another, people knew their boundaries. The
treatment of women, or rather, the mistreatment of women, among several other social evils
whose burden the older generations like to shift to the younger generation’s westernized and
urban thinking, is also seen as something that can be avoided, if women were to adopt the
archaic ways. But what I never cease to forget is the treatment of certain women in our holy
scriptures. Lord Rama disowned Sita when rumors started floating around his empire regarding
her chastity, one of them being the fact that she had spent about a year with Ravana in
captivity, which just so happens to be another stellar example of victim blaming. Lord Gautama
Buddha, who lived in ancient East India, abandoned his wife Yasodhara and their infant in his
pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. She spent the rest of her life trying to please the man who
forsook her. She gave up all her earthly possessions and started living the life of a saint herself
so as to emulate her husband and seek his approval.III He later congratulated her on her
patience and her sacrifices, as if she were a mere disciple, and not his wife, and didn’t seem to
be interested in giving an explanation as to his behavior. She didn’t even demand one; probably
thinking that she was not worthy. These are very small instances evidencing the persecution of
women that has been going on since the olden days, and as much as the older generations
would like to hold the newer generation accountable, they are not the fruits of the westernized
values that I or my younger generations seem to encompass.

There is a revolution going on. The women of this abusive oppressive society have suffered so
much over the years that their voices are now reverberating against the thick walls of the
societal pyramid. After the Bengaluru incident, numerous women took to Twitter to express
their agony and exasperation at their condition and the general lack of empathy for their
trauma. There were articles urging parents to raise better men, than to raise more cautious and
petrified women.IV Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar urged the people to see their faults in this
dismal and abominable landscape of misogyny and I have 23 years worth of experience to
believe that if a man tells other men to respect women’s boundaries and to not be a threat to
their dignity, they are more likely to listen to him than to the cries of the women who have
been pleading their cause for hundreds of years.

I Bengaluru’s Night of Shame http://bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com/bangalore/cover-story/bengalurus-night-of-
shame/articleshow/56279784.cms

II Women are to blame for Bengaluru Molestation incident, says Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/women-are-to-blame-for-bengaluru-molestation-incident-says-
samajwadi-party-leader-abu-azmi/articleshow/56310779.cms

III Yasodhara https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasodhar%C4%81

IV Indian Parents Aren’t Raising Their Sons Right, And It’s Endangering India’s Women
https://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/indias-daughters-are-in-danger-because-of-how-parents-
raise?utm_term=.tnqxKKoPV#.jtej99oQy

DAZED VISIONS

The darkness encompasses everything. At first, your eyes don’t adjust to it. It’s all hazy, and you
get a taste of what it would be like if you were blind. Those few seconds of non responsiveness
of your sight are balmy. The stupor is calming, it lowers you inhibitions.

There’s a body lying next to me in the all consuming darkness. I can’t see its face, maybe my
pupils have not adjusted to the darkness just yet. I can only see the silhouette, perhaps a man,
or perhaps a woman, perhaps none of these. I think it’s a man. In the company of this smoke
like presence, a certain peace washes over me. I don’t want to extend my hand for fear of
offending him. To extend my hand would be to question his reality. Did I call him? I don’t
remember.

In the darkness we keep staring at each other. I want to say something, but I suppress the urge.
Communication must not be through conventional methods with this being of the preternatural
realm. I try to communicate with my eyes, or my expression. Can it see me? Is the darkness as
stifling for him as it is for me, or is that all he knows? When you are born in the darkness, and
you live your life in it, that’s all you know. Anything else would seem abnormal and scary. I
don’t want to scare him.

There’s something in my eye. I rub them and open them after a few seconds and the silhouette
seems more defined, the lines more vivid, the darkness of its whole being more authentic,
more lucid. Fascinating. Maybe this being exists at that threshold between awareness and
slumber, at the extremities of perception, just barely slipping into the territory of illusion. I try
to concentrate; I think he’s trying to tell me something. I don’t want to blink an eye, let alone
move but my back is starting to hurt. I turn, all the while hoping I don’t frighten him. The figure
emanates from the bed and levitates into the air. It’s just there, floating above me. It’s getting
harder and harder to separate his frame from the darkness, the two slowly amalgamating to
form an all pervasive shadow. Maybe the darkness is the vehicle to his presence, they’re
interdependent. One cannot exist without the other. I’m grateful for the darkness.

I can feel that strong pull, forcefully shutting the curtains of my eyes, snatching me away from
reality, and I protest. I clench my fists, I prepare for battle, I can’t move. And then it comes, like
a wave in the ocean, so normal and so inseparable from the water itself. It seems as if it’s the
most natural thing in the world, to get sucked into the labyrinth of oblivion. The day comes
back in terrifying visions, my fears exaggerated, my ambitions numbed, my apprehensions
realized. It’s like a perplexing state of absolution, the world is at its horizon, and there’s
nowhere to go. I lose myself, I give into the pull. It’s pointless to revolt, now I know.

AN EXCERPT FROM THE LIFE OF A HISTRIONIC
FEMINIST

It started as a regular lunch time conversation among the four of us, me, my brother and my
parents. My cousin and his wife just had a baby boy. My mum was saying that we had an
invitation to attend the ‘Chhati’ or the sixth day celebration of the birth of the baby. Me as
usual being unaware of any of the traditions and customs that my extended family religiously
follows, gave a nod in assent and kept eating. Very playfully with a smirk on her face, my
mother remarked that if she were to tell me something about this so called tradition then I
would be displeased. Then she proceeded to inform me that this celebration on the sixth day of
a baby’s birth is reserved for boys only. I am infamous in my family for being ‘overly’ passionate
about gender bias which is a fancy way of saying that I don’t keep quite when somebody is
being sexist or misogynistic. I have on multiple occasions ‘harassed’ my friends for saying
something even vaguely sexist and offensive. Very recently a friend called me a ‘Feminazi’. My
mother was right, I was bothered by this. I asked my father what the purpose of the whole
event is and he told me that the people invited bestow their blessings (with reasonable sums of
cash) upon the new born baby boy and the pundit decides what the first letter of the child’s
name should be. For a baby girl, this decision of the first letter of the name is done on the
twelfth day after her birth and it is a comparatively somber occasion. After all, I don’t think
there is such a thing as a ‘Barwi’ (Chhey is the Hindi equivalent of six and Barah is of twelve).

Regardless to say, a little wave of displeasure and anger washed over me. It’s not that big a
deal, I know, but even the smallest incident or the tiniest remark serve as reminders for all the
times that I felt cheated, or somebody close to me felt worthless, all because of our gender.
After describing my displeasure in a polite and reasonably emphatic way, my brother went on
arguing with me. He told me that I take things too seriously and that there was no need for me
to be lecturing anyone in this house because my parents treat both of us equally and I was not
facing any discrimination. He was not wrong. My parents do treat us both fairly and there is no
favoritism. All his opportunities are mine as well, and vice versa. So momentarily, I kept quiet
because I didn’t feel like arguing.

A few moments later my brother started describing an incident where I had criticized the video
game developers of a World War One simulation game for not giving the players an alternative
to choose a female instead of a male soldier. He had then told me that in World War One there
were no female soldiers, rather women worked mostly as nurses and medics. Recounting the
incident myself, I told him that my chagrin was not reserved to one game but the industry as a
whole. If you disregard games in which you are given alternatives to choose either a male or a

female persona, still most games serve a male protagonist on a silver platter as the de facto
choice for all players. Are there female oriented games? Yes. Lara Croft comes to mind. An Indie
game called Life is Strange has a female protagonist that can reverse time with her mind,
Mirror’s Edge also has a kick ass female lead. But when it comes to pure statistics, games having
a man as the protagonist and the lead character outnumber those that have women in the
primary role. This argument thoroughly displeased him and he accused me of being a man
hating feminist. And that is absolute malarkey. We proceeded to have a heated discussion
which led to my mum asking me to learn to pull back a little because according to her, when
you keep talking incessantly about any issue, the whole idea loses its value. So I should learn to
stifle my anger at issues like this because nobody in my house was the least bit sexist and I had
nothing to prove to anyone. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I felt extremely
antagonized, but I kept quiet.

I read a small comic last night describing the historical significance of tattoos in the Korean
Society, especially with regard to Korean women. It explained that Japanese soldiers forced
their Korean sex slaves to get tattoos as a method of punishment for their attempts at
escaping.I Recently I have been reading Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique”. So needless
to say, I was feeling a little raw after this exchange. I am very fortunate to have been brought
up in a family where my brother and I are perceived as equals. What my family seems to forget
when they berate me for ‘lecturing’ them is that when I speak of my disgust and displeasure at
the treatment of women, I’m not doing it for myself. I am not trying to convince them to
change their behaviors towards me, but rather towards woman kind in general. How selfish
would it be of me to keep preaching gender equality just for my own sake, just to make sure
that I am never inconvenienced with the uncomfortable reality of prejudice? As long as my
situation is favorable, what does it matter if the women in Iran are being persecuted for
showing their hair in publicII, or women in Africa are being genitally mutilatedIII or women in
Pakistan are being killed by their own brothers for “dishonoring the family”?IV Since my
situation is relatively convenient, I should stop worrying about the issue. It reminds me of this
scene in the American sitcom “Friends” where Phoebe remarks, “We can drive, we can vote, we
can work, what more do these broads want?” when she hears about a one woman play called
"Why don't you like me: a bitter woman's journey through life".

The whole idea of feminism and equal rights and opportunities sits at the very core of my belief
system. It’s a powerful intrinsic feeling, something that has a very strong pull. Reading in the
news everyday about the atrocities committed against my gender has made me so vulnerable
inside that even a small remark by a friend like, “That girl made me pay for her dinner and then
completely friend zoned me” makes me shudder to my very bones and I immediately have to
tell myself not to lose my composure. It takes all my might not to scream at him that just
because he bought her dinner does not mean she owes him anything. My ‘lecturing’ is by no

means influenced by whether or not I have suffered because of said issue or not. I speak out
when I know something is unfair because I was not raised to keep quite in the face of
misogynistic malarkey. Does that make me sound over sensitive, crazy and even bitchy? Yes.
But in the big scheme of things in this male driven patriarchal society, does my perception as a
histrionic man hating unstable woman matter? Absolutely not.

I http://foxtalk.tistory.com/

II https://www.buzzfeed.com/alivelez/brave-iranian-women-are-showing-off-their-hair-in-
protest?utm_term=.ss44yy5qX#.enoLQQN8n

IIIhttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/06/what-is-female-genital-mutilation-where-happen

IV https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/28/pakistani-model-qandeel-baloch-killed-by-brother-after-
friends-taunts-mother

THE INTRICACIES OF A CAMARADARIE

My best friend’s name is Kajal. We’re the same age, and while I’m pursuing Chartered
Accountancy, she’s studying to become a Company Secretary. She was planning to do C.A.
along with C.S. and had started taking classes at the same institution I was studying at, which is
how we met. A 5’6 lanky girl with long hair and glasses, and an inanimate reserved visage, she
seemed like a no-bullshit type of a girl when I first introduced myself. Now two years later, we
talk on the phone for hours about the most irrelevant yet interesting things. Nothing is off
limits for us. She’s like my mum in that regard, you can talk about sex and sexualities, or you
can talk about the Chernobyl disaster, or about which new TV series to binge watch. It is so
weird how I can call a person I met two years ago my best friend, and write an article about her,
especially when I feel like I have serious intimacy and commitment issues.

I remember last year, Kajal called me and I could sense that she was upset somehow. I asked
her what had happened. She told me about a minor dispute where she thought she had
offended somebody at her class by cracking a little harmless joke. He wasn’e even a very close
friend of hers, just a casual acquaintance and yet, she seemed worried. After apprising me of
the details of the whole scenario, she confessed that she thought it was her mistake entirely
and she was the one who was to blame. Now according to me, this is a very different approach
to life. Inherently, I think, each and every one of us, whenever we get into an argument, our
first instinct is always blaming the other person. Proclamations like “He started it”, or “It was
her fault” or “I was not going to stand idly while he insulted me” are made on a regular basis
and I used to resort to very similar tactics. Sometimes I still do. I feel like that’s how we’re all
programmed. In an uncomfortable situation where you feel threatened by someone, you lash
out, or you keep your calm and turn it into a cold war where you either cut contact with the
other person or your conversations have just the right amount of animosity in them to make
everyone around you extremely uncomfortable. But in the aftermath of this individual disaster,
our very first thought is, it was the other person’s fault. I know when I get into an argument
with someone, my first thought is to try and pinpoint the exact thing the other person said or
did that provoked me. It’s always something that the other person must’ve done, because
basically, we’re not programmed to see ourselves as the irrational party, the provocateurs, at
least in the infancy of the analyzing and dissecting process. While this process gradually
progresses, the more matured ones can discern exactly who was to blame, whereas only the
really wise ones can admit if it was them who were at fault. It takes a special kind of patience to
get to the later stages of this mental development and some of us never really make it that far.

Kajal’s response was peculiar. She said, in these very words, “When I get into a fight with
someone, I always think that I must’ve said something and it was probably my fault.” I analyzed
this behavior to mean that she had low self esteem, which is horrible because she’s a terrific
person. She’s so sweet, so kind, so polite, and really helpful. On my birthday, she came all the
way from Delhi after her class to surprise me, even though she hadn’t seen her family who live
nearby in three months and after staying with me for the night, she had to leave first thing in
the morning. I’ve never had any friend do that for me, and I was so grateful. I really love her,
and that just made it so much more depressing. Why would a nice kind person, whom anybody
would be extremely fortunate to have as a friend, would think so little of themselves? I told her
emphatically and repeatedly, that if she ever gets into any kind of argument with someone, it’s
very probable that it was not her fault seeing as how she’s not the argumentative aggressive
type in the first place. In the two years I’ve known her, I’ve never heard her insult anyone. The
farthest she goes is, “She’s not a nice person”, or “He was a little mean”. It’s surprising and
honestly quite sad that such a kind and caring human being would have so little faith in
themselves that they would be willing to put themselves through so much misery and self
loathing just because of a little argument with somebody they don’t even know that well.

Every day I talk to her, I tell her how much I love her, and how lucky I am to be her friend. I tell
her she’s a lovely person; I try to make her feel great about herself. I want her to know that it’s
not always her fault, and that she should learn to stand up for herself. I am incredibly fortunate
to have a friend so close that she might as well be my soul mate, if such a thing even exists. I
think it’s only fair for me to try to prove to her what a fantastic person she is, and I’m going to
keep trying as long as we stay friends, which I hope is no less than a few lifetimes.

THE DOORS THAT FLUNG OPEN

“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy.
Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”

-Dalai Lama

Kindness, humanity, benevolence, so many words to describe the same value. Innumerable
sayings have been recorded over history urging man to be kind to one another, to help each
other in need, to be generous and tolerant, to be gracious and charitable. Somehow, we all try
to live by these values and try to engage in gestures of kindness and humanity, be them small
or big. But what happens when one of the most powerful women in the world proposes a plan
that would not help hundreds or thousands, but millions of people. And these people, they’re
truly vulnerable in the most obvious and candid sense. Displaced from the lands they call home,
fleeing terror and violence, risking their lives to cross the ocean that separates their war torn
homeland from the idyllic peaceful and promising lands that seem to be within their grasp yet
unfathomably far away at the same time.

Angela Merkel’s kindness really knows no bounds. Opening up the borders of her country to
millions of disadvantaged helpless people was an act of monumental bravery and benevolence.
Not only did she open up Germany, but she also insisted other countries in the EU to help the
refugees. Sweden, France, Norway, Netherlands, Italy and several other countries gratefully
accepted refugees from the Middle East to ensure their safety and to provide them with a
secure future. At first glance, Ms. Merkel’s actions seem commendable and noteworthy. An
article I read online suggested that she took this crucial step so as to repaint her country’s gory
and intolerant past. Who can say if that was the motive behind her decision, but nonetheless,
her decision was admirable.

Immigrants and refugees kept pouring into Germany over 2015. There seemed to be no
stopping to this inflow and European countries were asked to buck up and take their share and
play their part in this effort to work for those who had lost everything. But one event brought
so much bad press to the whole decision that was up until now seen as a laudable attempt by a
woman to restore humanity. The 2015/2016 New Year Eve’s sexual assaults in Germany
brought the whole Open Door Policy into question. German Police reported that as much as
1200 women were assaulted and most of the perpetrators were men of “Arab or North African
appearance”.i This solitary event led to mass infamy of Angela Merkel’s decision and brought
the whole concept of accepting refugees to European countries into question.

Therein lays the conundrum. A woman tried her best to help truly vulnerable people by
providing them a stable home, yet her actions backed by very best intentions backfired.
Criticisms poured in from all over the world. From Donald Trump to Geert Wilders to god knows
how many others vocalized their discontentment and disappointment at the policy.ii Far right
parties in the country gained popularity after the attacks and several others that followed, and
their fascist white supremacist leaders got off by criticizing Merkel and her policy.iii After this
event, all other attacks in Europe which so much as insinuated or hinted at the probability of
the refugees and illegal immigrants being the perpetrators somehow became her responsibility.
Angela Merkel’s shoulders became the platform to lay the blame for all the refugee related
crime in Europe. The comments section of every newspaper article was filled with witty insults,
criticisms and bashings all condemning Merkel. She was suddenly hailed as the woman whose
policies are “destroying Europe”.iv People proclaimed that there was blood on her hands.
Ironically, the woman who wanted to alter her country’s historical image from a brutal, fascist
regime to a more tolerant, liberal and accepting nation was the one who aided in the rise of
many neo-Nazi organizations to prominence.

Thinking about it now, pondering the question in my own head, I can’t decide if Merkel’s
decision was brave and kind, or rash and foolhardy. It’s a very perplexing case. On one hand,
the woman who turns her face away from the plight of millions is not just stone hearted but
downright cruel, but at the same time, sacrificing the security of her own people by admitting
people of a completely different mindset and culture does indeed seem to be very foolish and
immature. That’s the whole problem. This is not a situation you can file into your head under
Black or White. It goes in the Gray section which is full of several other quandaries that you just
can’t seem to solve. Some people have definitive answers. They are sympathetic to the cause
and extend their deepest reverences to Merkel. These people chant slogans like “Solidarity with
the Refugees” and protest when their countries close their borders against the entry of
refugees. Others, like Donald Trump, whole heartedly chastise this decision and persecute
Merkel for her stupidity.v But I don’t believe a person in their sane and rational mind can ever
fully be for or against this decision.

I talked to my mother to see what she thought of the whole problem. She said she thought it
was stupid to let just anybody into their country without a background check to see if they
were in fact criminals or even people with homicidal tendencies. But there was no way of
checking. The people fleeing their countries barely had any belongings. Most of them didn’t
even have their birth certificates to indicate their age, how could it be expected of them to
produce their criminal record. And if comprehensive interviews and checks were to take place,
with the number of people pouring the whole process would’ve stretched from a few months
to years. And that was not possible as these people needed a home immediately. The
government tried their best to keep everything under control. There were checks enacted to

monitor the activities of the refugees at the refugee centers but somehow, these controls
faltered. In Sweden, the country’s largest shopping mall was deemed a no-go zone after several
accounts of harassments by the immigrants.vi Several more attacks have been recorded in
Germany, many of them being sexual assaults.vii All these instances only antagonize the
onlooker. The countries which provided them a home, they are spreading violence and unrest
in them. How thankless and ungrateful. A few miscreants paint such a dark picture of the whole
refugee population. Suddenly, all of them are seen as rapists and killers. And ultimately, sooner
or later, Angela Merkel’s name comes up.

It’s a pitiful thing that a once revered person’s name is besmirched at a global level, all because
she wanted to help people. Merkel’s good intentions are now seen as weaknesses and idiocy.
She is singlehandedly deemed as the reason behind several acts of violence that she could
never have foreseen, let alone prevented. Privileged idiots who attained the most powerful
chair in the world by indulging in racism, bigotry and perpetuating an intolerant and hateful
culture can say things like “Merkel destroyed Europe”, all the while disregarding how many
lives they destroyed by assaulting women.viii Apparently such accusations do not contain an iota
of truth and are nothing but attempts at defamation.

I can’t say if the Open Door Policy was more disparaging and harmful than it was beneficial, but
in my humble opinion, Merkel does not deserve the backlash and hatred because all she was
trying was to do the kind thing. And she did succeed in providing several helpless people a good
home, a stable society and better future. And she does not deserve to be tyrannized for that.
Who knows how her name would be recorded in history-as the woman who opened her arms
wide to embrace the needy and to aid humanity or the woman who made one decision the
negative outcome of which painted her life’s work a deep crimson.

i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year%27s_Eve_sexual_assaults_controversy_in_Germany

ii http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4052934/Far-right-Dutch-leader-Geert-Wilders-tweets-provocative-
image-Angela-Merkel-blood-hands-blaming-cowardly-leaders-tsunami-Islamic-terror.html

iii https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2440378/german-far-right-and-security-experts-blame-angela-merkels-open-
door-migrant-policy-for-berlin-truck-attack-by-refugee/

iv http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/09/07/trump-migration-destroying-europe/

v http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-times-bild-interviews-angela-merkel-
germany-catastophic-mistake-refugees-a7528926.html

vi http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/754126/Violent-migrant-gangs-Swedish-shopping-centre-no-go-zone-
Gothenburg

vii https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8663/germany-migrants-rape
viii http://people.com/politics/every-sexual-assault-accusation-against-donald-trump/

THE ORANGE TREE

There’s a tree in the orchard that has oranges so supple
The leaves a lush green you’ve never seen before
The lines on the bark are so prominent you could trace them
To find the origins of mankind. They tell a story, which you can only read,
If you’re willing. The tree is silent, it doesn’t like strangers
It doesn’t like to smile too fondly, or look too bright, for fear
Of attracting unwanted attention. The tree is old, the tree knows things
The tree has cracked and bled and died

All alone in a morose orchard filled with nothing but Neem trees
The tree spills life from its branches, the twigs sing a soft melody
Putting the tiny birds to shame.
All alone in this joyless landscape, like the first ray of light in the dawn
The pressure to be the allegory, for things beyond human control
All alone in these green unfathomable depths, the orange seems
Almost pious. You look all around for that color of sunlight
Only the most devoted can find it. If it were easy to find it
It would not be so fruitful, so commiserating, so holy
Everything worth getting makes you work hard for it
The tree doesn’t know the quest, doesn’t know the patience
Doesn’t know the sacrifice. It doesn’t know its own beauty
So mystified by the grim greenery. It boasts a new life, something

More gratifying, something with a purpose. The tree doesn’t know
Its own importance. And the tree will never know because it won’t
Talk to me. The tree is shy, it doesn’t like strangers
And when everything culminates to that point of ascension
From which there’s no return, the tree will carry on.
Its beauty untouched, its glamour untainted, its aura unadulterated

One day, only the tree will remain to speak of the life before it

VIOLET

The gleaming sun
Seeps into me
A gash in my head
The blood doesn’t bother me
What’s one more incision?

The peace in the sea
The serendipity
How I managed this life
And I managed this life
And I heard a voice
No more lies
Let the universe see
What comprises me

And out came this travesty
The sins and corruption seemed to color
Over the hardships
It was all red
And not a speck of blue

The Pyre of Resurrection

Push, Push, keep the valor
Her nails have the flesh of the enemy
She’ll carve it out to make a new being
Shred by shred, tissue by tissue
An incision in her thigh
File the femur to give her bones
Like a mother gives her calcium to her
Unborn fetus, she will give birth
She’ll teach her, the good from the bad
No mistake shall go unpunished
It’s tricky business, but it
Has to be done
The child will look evil,
Like her eyes reflect depravity
But she will have the strength and the mind
Of a gallant, brilliant and merciful mother
Her last sigh, when she’s rotting away
It shall not be in vain
For this world will come to a halt
If not for her, than for others
Pass the torch sisters
Let’s set their world ablaze

REVIEW: THE MAGIC TOYSHOP, ANGELA CARTER

An eerie sensation, a macabre feeling, an unseen evil seems to lurk behind the words of Angela
Carter. You can sense a presence; an ordinary expression seems to serve as an omen, and you
keep waiting for the horrific specter to emanate. The words pull you in, and paint you in a
shade of grey resembling the mist, or the sky on a cloudy day when the sun has surrendered to
the dismal tenacity of the shadows, or the color of Aunt Margaret’s special Sunday dress.
Nothing can prepare you for the sepulchral nimbus the words are capable of formulating
around your psyche, a design speaking more of darkness than light. An ethereal being takes a
hold over you when you read Angela Carter; she grasps your hand and becomes your usher
through the tangled forest of emotions that are being evoked in you. At times mystical, it
soothes you and satiates your whimsy. My only complaint would be the absence of a bone
chilling, blood curdling climax. The hunger for explanations developed gradually and it was, at
times trying, but the provision seemed insufficient and underwhelming. The progression to the
unspeakable and unimaginable was beautiful in itself, but the culmination was so abrupt it kept
me wanting. For me, the book ended too soon, and revealed too little. I am still looking for
answers, making them up to pacify my demanding imagination, but I can’t help feeling that no
exposition I make up can be elaborate enough, or enthralling enough, than Angela’s, had she
given one.