Cowards, To Thee I Say...

I am a girl, a daughter, a woman, a professional, a secular individual, an Indian and a global citizen.

In each of my roles, I have my own unique set of responsibilities. I have different dreams. I aim for different goals. I demand my different rights.

As a girl, I am responsible for taking care of myself. As a girl, I want to be happy and dream of living the perfect life in a fairy tale.

As a daughter, I am responsible for the happiness and comfort of my parents. As a daughter, I aim to keep my parents satisfied and proud of me even while living life independent of their pressures and ambitions. I have the right to be loved and criticised for who I am and not for my gender.

As a woman, I am responsible for being fair but not unsoft in my dealings with the world. As a woman, I aim to use my female instincts to dust off unwarranted and undeserved males while preening for the one I want. As a woman, I have the right to live life on my own terms and not on terms dictated by the dominant force at a given time and place. As a woman, I demand my right of choice. As a woman, I demand a country and a world where future generations are still left with a world viable and strong enough for their share of foibles and follies.

As a professional, I am responsible for delivering on my job. And then, a little more. As a professional, I aim to touch the loftiest star in my skies while keeping my integrity alive. As a professional, I demand that I be identified by my work and not by my gender.

As a secular individual, I am responsible for understanding my religion and the other person’s religion. Short of that, I am responsible for acting maturely and fairly and acquaint myself with ‘perspective’. As a secular individual, I dream of a world where religions remain personal quirks like favourite brands of toothpaste and not badges of identity. As a secular individual, I am demand that as I do not judge others by their religion, let them not judge me by mine; that I be given the right to live and grow and see my generations thrive in a land undiluted by hate mongered in the name of Gods.

As an Indian, I am responsible for understanding the complex honeycomb concept of India and never dismissing my nation’s achievements and shames and missed buses in catchphrases of the moment. As an Indian, I dream of a world where India is known and seen by the world through the prism of who she is and not in terms of who she inks a deal with. I dream of an India where equal opportunity exists for people of all caste, religion, ethnicity, region and sex; and I aim to not be dismissive of the still births faced on the journey towards being that India.

As an Indian, I demand the right to not be hijacked by other people’s war in my own land. As an Indian, I demand the right to not be held hostage to the whims and moneys of jobless and idle satans. As an Indian, I demand that my country be acknowledged for her strengths and may no Indian or non-Indian tarnish that with gratuitous exposition on her scabs.

As a global citizen, I am responsible for understanding the uniqueness of the world we inhabit – the fascinating rainbow of skin and eye colours, of thoughts and beliefs, of faiths and rituals, of tribes and races, of soils and life. As a global citizen, I am responsible to be not selfish enough to pawn the future of this world. I aim for a world where citizens will not be identified by their colour of skin or length of their clothes. I aim for a world whose people understand the value of this earth we inhabit and who realise that only in togetherness shall we survive and prosper.

As a global citizen, I demand that personal quibbles be solved over a cuppa in a coffee house and not in gunbattles. As a global citizen, I demand that politicians and leaders in all garbs think of countless voiceless me’s in this world before embarking on violent carthages rather than just thinking of their own personal I’s.

As a girl, a daughter, a woman, a professional, a secular individual, an Indian and a global citizen, I demand the right to reclaim my space. I demand that my country be returned to me, for jobless thoughtless cowards have no right to wreck the fabric in the weaving of which they had no hand and dried no sweat.

As a girl, a daughter, a woman, a professional, a secular individual, an Indian and a global citizen, I say to all ye cowards now – Take your fight somewhere else. This country has stood by you for 60 years and when it chastised you for bleeding her, you turn on her like your age old enemy. You have no honour. My country and her people pride themselves in being honourable. Yes, we have had great moments of shame. Yes, we have made inerasable mistakes in judgement. But if we cannot sit across a table and talk, then you do not deserve to hear ‘fair trial’.

A frustrated and despairing person’s curse be on all you cowards: “May you all rot in your special Hell.”