SAASWATHA KRISHNA

 When you've been brought up in a chaotic environment, you learn that quietness is scary.  Early on, you learn that silence is the result of disappointment and that its an indicator that something bad is going to happen. And you do anything to fill the pauses and unwelcome silence.  The loudest noise drowns  In eerie silence, however painful is where you will find solace.

In the midst of worldwide despair, raging anxieties and uncertainties can we however thin, find a silver lining?  As fear throttles our day to day life and immobilises our future, we scramble for hope and ask, "Is there anything good at all in the offset of this truly tumultuous period?" Even at this stage of ambiguity and distress, the collective human spirit reassures us with everyday grace and kindness that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We, as social beings will come through with faith and the reform of one. Unanimity and collective anxiety can be overcome by shared empathy.  Walking together, socially distanced yet interconnected by moments of laughter through a shared video, a funny GIF or endless video call minutes gets us through together. Technology has found a way to ward off the isolation that this disease and fear was trying to engulf us in.

 When my weight sinks into the ground and holds it with intensity, I will not reminisce over the times my body heartily challenged gravity but I will celebrate my spirit that pulls me back to my feet.  With awareness of the new found boundaries my body faces, I will not lower my head in shame or misery but bask in the glory of my skin and the beauty of my resilience despite my circumstance.

The stillness of the night sky, the faint twinkle of the stars. The reassuring deep breaths and soft chirps of birds from a distance.They all tell me to listen and to take a moment and engulf in the present. The present gives us indefinite hope for the future. The predictability of nature, reminds me that I can rest my head and close my eyes and when I wake up, the sun will be back, the birds will be chirping and my breath carries on. 

You do not know how your race is perceived in this day and age until a white privileged man on the internet tells you that as a person from my country, I speak "near-perfect" English after years of reading classics like Shakespeare, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth, P.G.Woodehouse, Fitzgerald and so many others. The casual assumption that we do not speak their language as well as them or even better when my forefathers struggle to inculcate and tech themselves this colonial tongue more than our mother tongue is not only insulting to my race but diminishing the efforts we as a race took to be considered as equal members of this global society.

I will dig deep into my layered insecurities, hold it, in its essence and speak soft existence into it.  Hold it not in an attempt to vanquish it but to understand and pave the way for internal kindness.