Her village

She was grown up in the communism of her small village. It may not have the modern smoke-sending, river-polluting industries but it does have the glory of the kind lap of Mother Nature and its biodiversity. Never traveling out of it, it was all good, her village, the social system there, the people & their lifestyles before she finally encountered a bit of urban luxury. She traveled far and saw a better face of equality, less hindered opportunity, less hindered decision making, more independence; thy culture, traditions & superstitions. Humans have a sharp memory. They set their threshold and build an unknown castle that could mire the realities until unless someone or something breaks it. Humans like to live in illusions like other animals of lesser intellect.

Retuning back, her village was not the same as she had left it a few months back. She was used to a different kind of air. She might have tasted a bit of merit-based capitalism, but then she knew that not all people are living a life that is not being called deplorable. She knew that there is not a single hospital in any of her sheer vicinity. She came to understand that the happy Jacob, the old man who wears a smile underneath a lengthy mustache is hiding his body pains and worldly confusions. She came to know that the women in her village could not wear sanitary pads because of some customs and lack of better awareness. She understood that children in her village could have a better growing up if given a fraction of the world-class education that some in other parts of the world enjoy. The gap that she is observing is glaring with red heat.

No one knew that she will have to live a life of duality and confusion of what is better? She couldn’t conclude much. It started to feel like hell - her village that once was an abode to heaven, the place where the air is pure, where everyone is a bit innocent, where even eating one time bequeaths gratefulness. She knew that she should not have jumped the well where she was the queen frog of a kind… What must be done? How should she start and invite change? Is change needed? Who controls it? Is she in charge or someone else? She could feel an upper hand gliding over her head and the village. These power structures that hold her kind village in tight grips don’t seem to vary even a little by the prayers before her lords. She has tasted inequality that left her tongue permanently bitter… It may not be true. Perhaps, it is a temporary feeling or some nostalgia. Maybe, she longs for something that she couldn’t get here. It will take a bit before she comes back to normal, or a new normal, before she forgets her former journey, before she submits to her powerlessness. Let us hope that she loses her hope, if there is any. May she live long.