I attended a lecture last week on Trans Generational Trauma by Rajat Mitra at INTACH, New Delhi. This was organised by Srijan Foundation.
One of the questions asked was if Hindus really feel the trauma even after being subjected to atrocities since ever? Hindus seem to be living with an attitude that as long as the danger does not approach their doorstep they won't react nor will they pay attention to the obvious. And when the danger does approach, they will run away.
How much of running away will be done and for how long and will the boundaries of the earth be ever enough?
The story of many of my family and friends have been same. They have been forced out of erstwhile East Pakistan to live in the North Eastern part of India. They had to leave their home, their land and everything that was associated with their life. Though the North East has literally been and will remain the home for us for all times to come, but the truth is that we have never felt much at home. We have been asked this question right from our childhood as to where is our place of origin. Sadly our place of origin has been separated from India much before we were born and many of us haven't had the fortune to go and visit either.
Higher studies and jobs have been much difficult to find in the North East and for reasons of livelihood and to escape the refugee tag, we have moved to mainland India. So, in a way we have been driven out of our place of birth. Though the lucky ones like some of us can go back and visit the place when we want, stay in our own homes for a few weeks before getting back to the hustle and bustle of city life. But the majority of the little economically sound people have sold their big spacious houses with gardens and trees of yore and moved to cities. This I call the second instance of displacement in like say three generations. And all these after building everything from scratch.
Those who have stayed back live in fear; the recent incidents in Tinsukia prove that nothing is right and that no place is safe. It proves that nothing has changed.
Now the city life seems the way it was meant to be and we are peacefully unaware of the dangers that are lurking on our neighborhood. These dangers are in the form of external forces which are bent on changing our very way of life and imposing on us cultures that are alien and in reality a threat to our own existence. We are happy to be playing second fiddle, we find bliss in being tolerant and we totally reject the greatness of our being and we refuse to fight back.
Recently a friend had to unfriend me from Facebook because her boss thought or so she said that I was expressing opinions which were not fulfilling the parameters of tolerance. I never realized the unfriending as it is not feasible to keep all things in life in this generation of information overload. She called me to say this only after she had left the job due to health reasons. For me the unfriending did not matter but what mattered was the sheer spineless nature of our generation where we are just happy to be surviving this moment. We have conveniently forgotten what we have lost and we don't see what we will lose.
Also some of us in this generation have successfully managed to leave the country for better jobs and facilities and totally submerged in the western way of life that we have almost forgotten who we are!
So my thought goes back to the question whether there is any trauma at all! We are blissfully unaware that the dangers will continue and then we will not have a place left to run to. Unless we reclaim, we are a lost race!
One of the questions asked was if Hindus really feel the trauma even after being subjected to atrocities since ever? Hindus seem to be living with an attitude that as long as the danger does not approach their doorstep they won't react nor will they pay attention to the obvious. And when the danger does approach, they will run away.
How much of running away will be done and for how long and will the boundaries of the earth be ever enough?
The story of many of my family and friends have been same. They have been forced out of erstwhile East Pakistan to live in the North Eastern part of India. They had to leave their home, their land and everything that was associated with their life. Though the North East has literally been and will remain the home for us for all times to come, but the truth is that we have never felt much at home. We have been asked this question right from our childhood as to where is our place of origin. Sadly our place of origin has been separated from India much before we were born and many of us haven't had the fortune to go and visit either.
Higher studies and jobs have been much difficult to find in the North East and for reasons of livelihood and to escape the refugee tag, we have moved to mainland India. So, in a way we have been driven out of our place of birth. Though the lucky ones like some of us can go back and visit the place when we want, stay in our own homes for a few weeks before getting back to the hustle and bustle of city life. But the majority of the little economically sound people have sold their big spacious houses with gardens and trees of yore and moved to cities. This I call the second instance of displacement in like say three generations. And all these after building everything from scratch.
Those who have stayed back live in fear; the recent incidents in Tinsukia prove that nothing is right and that no place is safe. It proves that nothing has changed.
Now the city life seems the way it was meant to be and we are peacefully unaware of the dangers that are lurking on our neighborhood. These dangers are in the form of external forces which are bent on changing our very way of life and imposing on us cultures that are alien and in reality a threat to our own existence. We are happy to be playing second fiddle, we find bliss in being tolerant and we totally reject the greatness of our being and we refuse to fight back.
Recently a friend had to unfriend me from Facebook because her boss thought or so she said that I was expressing opinions which were not fulfilling the parameters of tolerance. I never realized the unfriending as it is not feasible to keep all things in life in this generation of information overload. She called me to say this only after she had left the job due to health reasons. For me the unfriending did not matter but what mattered was the sheer spineless nature of our generation where we are just happy to be surviving this moment. We have conveniently forgotten what we have lost and we don't see what we will lose.
Also some of us in this generation have successfully managed to leave the country for better jobs and facilities and totally submerged in the western way of life that we have almost forgotten who we are!
So my thought goes back to the question whether there is any trauma at all! We are blissfully unaware that the dangers will continue and then we will not have a place left to run to. Unless we reclaim, we are a lost race!
