tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50952447803406493572024-02-21T08:49:15.339+05:30It's Just MeSwarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.comBlogger261125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-32695181276515993572023-12-30T17:56:00.001+05:302023-12-30T17:56:37.125+05:30On Citizens, Squirrels, Democracy and Peace2023 is
almost over and ‘best of…’ lists and articles about new year’s resolutions are
everywhere. The impulse is to comment on the speedy flight of time but what a
year this has been and how much more unbearable had it floated by at the pace
of childhood summers.
This moment
has seemed even more apocalyptic since December 2019’s advent of the COVID-19
virus. The pandemic; the global democratic Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-11253587987622361532022-11-30T22:58:00.006+05:302022-12-01T08:47:22.499+05:30#nosgbv FutilityI had promised myself that I would blog everyday. I make this promise on a regular basis and too often, do not get to keep it. But I am proud to say that I do not give up and I persist and start over and over. So it is today. Yesterday, I was just too tired to post. Today, I am too blank. Or maybe, not blank but just saturated with things that I have said too often. After today's event, as Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-26872938620789849292022-11-28T21:37:00.002+05:302022-11-28T21:37:26.475+05:30#nosgbv Who will protect us from our protectors? I am settling down to blog after having just watched a news video of an attack by men claiming to be from the Hindu Sena on the prison van carrying Aftab Poonawala who is now infamous for abusing and finally murdering and chopping his partner into bits. They said to the mediapersons around them that they would protect their sisters and mothers from such people. Somebody ask us, sistersSwarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-83907959335998638242022-11-27T22:38:00.001+05:302022-11-27T22:38:02.156+05:30#nosgbv Rambling reflections on domestic violence, dowry and imaginary safe havensFor three years or so, I've been part of a project that seeks to understand how domestic violence survivors access help and justice. Some of their stories are heartbreakingly familiar. One has seen so many variations all of one's life that I went from rejecting that women should fast and pray for good husbands to thinking that they desperately needed to because good men and good marriages seemed Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-33832083134159204932022-11-26T23:07:00.003+05:302022-11-26T23:07:39.425+05:30#nosgbv For the sake of the daughters who did not surviveAmartya Sen made the idea of "missing women" famous--those baby girls who should be walking among us but are not because someone aborted them as a foetus or killed them as an infant or simply neglected them so much that they did not survive ordinary childhood illnesses. Our mothers and aunts and sisters and daughters and nieces who should have been with us. I think about them a lot. Many Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-57183668237177993942022-11-25T21:45:00.001+05:302022-11-25T22:09:30.247+05:30#nosgbv "You do such good work!" “You do such good work!” I hear this comment from time to time
when people recall that my work has something to do with gender-based violence.
Most people assume my organisation and I do rescue work. We don’t. It is not
important enough to them to find out what exactly we do. (We do public
education or awareness work.) They are sure it is good work.
The comment makes me uncomfortable. I want to Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-26610789612251105042022-11-22T08:06:00.000+05:302022-11-22T08:06:16.808+05:30Treading water, typing wordsOf all the promises I make to myself, exercise is the most easily broken, followed by writing. And I do not make many promises to myself so that's a hefty percentage! Why is it so hard to make time for either of these--both in their way life-giving? But that's not what I want to write about. I actually have nothing to write about in this post. This is a treading water, typing words post, Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-46988948065713998752022-11-03T09:08:00.000+05:302022-11-03T09:08:00.889+05:30Seeking Hope in Apocalyptic TimesIn the eery stillness of the first weeks of the pandemic, the air heavy with anxiety and fear, it was hard not to think of the apocalypse. Would we ever emerge from this moment we could not understand, even as we registered the sudden deaths of people who were hale and hearty? The invisible peril from Wuhan was the stuff of mythology and horror films, terrorising humans who could not fathom what Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-66294001363133689332022-11-01T07:34:00.002+05:302022-11-01T07:34:38.383+05:30Red Cedar Reminiscences Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-5885876428129273662022-10-31T08:06:00.001+05:302022-10-31T08:15:11.566+05:30The Iron Man at HomeToday, my father would have turned 94. He passed away suddenly in 1995, leaving us to remember and miss him every single day. With each passing year, my experiences deepen my appreciation of the person he was. It is hard for children to truly appreciate their parents (a category that in India still includes grandparents, uncles and aunts) because they simply do not have the life experience Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-51934964916716610592022-02-27T09:14:00.001+05:302022-02-27T09:14:31.185+05:30How can I keep from singing?On Thursday
morning, even as President Putin declared war on Ukraine, I was speaking with
two Afghan women friends. These were work-related conversations but how could
they not talk about the reality that is uppermost in their mind, omnipresent in
their day.
Both were
lucky enough to have left and to have their immediate family with them. But
with reprisals on the rise, what of their extended Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-44143594487947929172022-01-24T06:45:00.002+05:302022-01-24T06:45:42.638+05:30Militarism is an Eternal FlameSource: https://cdn.editorji.com/V2dOka2MIo.jpgLast week, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was extinguished after lending its flame in December 2021 to India's new National War Memorial. There are many points of view on this, broadly divided along predictable political lines.To me, this underscores a change that has been creeping in on us, as a society, for many years. Simply put: We have now gone Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-46576079790197183872022-01-02T09:18:00.002+05:302022-01-02T09:18:24.514+05:30Sunshine and a multi-coloured crayon! Another New Year, another resolution. The most important nursery rhyme we learn (in English) may well be 'Insy Winsy Spider,' what life seems to be nothing but an endless series of climbing up walls, sliding off and trying again. I am not sure what the spider's goal was but as I grow older, the doing itself has become my goal. Just to be writing. Writing what, who will read, is it good? I Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-33976245965624964382021-03-07T09:53:00.002+05:302021-03-08T08:38:54.142+05:30Beyond the #facepalm! A single post with all my #IWD articlesWriting that International Women's Day article or blogpost is a March ritual that I look forward to--though I am not sure why. Over the years, I have now written a few and instead of tweeting them all out one by one and annoying you, decided to build an archive post. I will just keep adding them here and sharing this one instead!The first media article I did was at the invitation of Prayaag AkbarSwarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-19249979167586013132020-08-02T21:03:00.001+05:302020-08-02T21:03:55.189+05:30Show me your compassionate heart. And you will find me there. (A short story for a long lament.)I have stepped
out to get some ilaneer (tender coconut water). On the bench by the vendor’s
cart, sits a very despondent man. I think that maybe he is thirsty but the ilaneer
is too expensive so I ask the vendor to give him one, my treat. The vendor shakes
his head. “He has been like this for a long time. He won’t speak. He won’t buy
a coconut. He just sits thereSwarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-71694859450003074652020-02-03T16:12:00.000+05:302020-02-03T16:12:11.590+05:30Just me, just for now
It's just one life.
It's just one day, fewer than 24 hours long.
It's just this minute.
Just for this minute,
let me stop.
Let me put down all the shoulds and oughts and supposed tos.
Just for this minute,
let me be.
It's just me;
surely it will not matter
if I stop,
just this minute,
just for today.
Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-63505227461134892322020-01-07T07:19:00.001+05:302020-01-07T07:19:22.552+05:30Absurd Politics, Incomprehensible World
Last week,
as I read of IIT Kanpur setting up a committee to see if Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s
nazm, Hum Dekhenge, was against Hindus, one phrase flashed back into my head
from the distant past: the theatre of the absurd.
In the last
few years, we have become accustomed to hearing so many absurd and ridiculous
statements by politicians that we barely notice what they say. Their utterances
are Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-72601008452695573602019-11-09T09:03:00.000+05:302019-11-09T09:03:06.753+05:30Ayodhya: Sabko Sanmati De Bhagvaan
Ayodhya means invincible. But anything with an absolute description like that is surely a metaphor. The town, its spirit and its history are defeated by the human battle over ground and walls and ceilings and this room or that room. The people perhaps defeated by being dragged into what ultimately are squabbles.
The idea... what is the idea of Ayodhya? I think of that para from the Valmiki Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-57951025186487572442019-10-02T19:06:00.000+05:302019-10-02T19:06:04.077+05:30Of cyber satyagrahis and citizenship failures
Today, there is a boycott of all communications devices being called for--no phone, TV, Internet, radio. The idea is to simulate the situation that Kashmiris have been forced to live with and to write about it what it feels like.
I saw this a few days ago and knew I would not join. Why? I am traveling, my elderly mother is at a distance, my organisation has a major event scheduled. And as I Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-72379797808104050952019-08-15T08:13:00.000+05:302019-08-15T08:13:24.380+05:30Independence Day Prayer, 2019
Where the
mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Amma, I seek the courage to stand my ground
and speak my truth regardless of how people will troll me and what might happen.
Where knowledge is free;
Please open up all the locked in and locked
down and locked out zones of the world, so we can see and hear what is happening
there, and people within can learn that Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-25471023011178651592019-05-24T07:41:00.001+05:302019-05-24T07:41:49.372+05:30The Re-Discovery of India
First, let
me apologise: I am so much a product of Nehru’s India that I could not think of a
more original title. But this is the most apt summary for what this day (May 23, 2019) has
brought to me—a re-discovery of India, a world that I thought I knew, but
clearly didn’t.
In recent
weeks, I have wondered if such a re-discovery was about to happen, and I have
waited, with dread, to find Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-12480582794416008212019-04-09T17:03:00.001+05:302019-04-09T17:03:35.071+05:30Personal Reflections on the Preamble to the Constitution of India in Election Season
Elections are less than three weeks away and
there are many who are not sure how they will vote, and even, whether they will
vote. I go into this election with definite concerns and preferences. This post is written as a way of sharing those in a constructive way, in
the hope that someone will find them useful.
The touchstone for me are
Constitutional values. I grant, none of our Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-57204294197230626352019-01-27T14:55:00.000+05:302019-01-27T14:55:15.275+05:30Not that bad... (much worse, really)
The week after I watched Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony on television, I purchased an anthology of essays edited by Roxane Gay, Not That Bad (Harper 2018). The subtitle of this book is 'Dispatches from Rape Culture,' and I thought I would find more ideas, insights and words that I could then bring to the everyday work I get to do with Prajnya on gender-based violence.
It has taken Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-20881808975386262302019-01-18T16:58:00.002+05:302019-01-18T16:58:47.832+05:30The gift of thinking visually
I am primarily a word person. Having said this, I notice images. I love to play with design software. Photography is a special pleasure. And many museum visits in the last decades have diminished the exam anxiety-tedium-tension that many of us Indians grow up feeling around art. I even have photo blogs (yes, although some are secret and some I simply don't share).
Nevertheless, when I come hereSwarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5095244780340649357.post-88188187456098080262019-01-13T08:19:00.002+05:302019-01-13T08:19:37.745+05:30The thing about lit fests...
...is that they also seem to become society events.
I love books and the city where I live is home to a literary festival. I should be excited and rushing to hang out all the time, right? Instead, I only go to the sessions that feature friends (and there are always several of those) and run back as if escaping from an evil dragon's lair.
I often wonder why. I see people I know so I could have Swarna Rajagopalanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03062914445385198762noreply@blogger.com0