at breakfast on sunday morning, my aunt was retelling stories to me about british/indian tensions that remain in the UK til today. particularly, she told me a funny anectode about how while she lived there, brits used to say to indians that they should go back to wherever they came from. her friend would quip, "we’ve come to take back the kohinoor."
after my recent trip to india, and falling in love with my mother country all over again, i found the story poignant and in a way charming. we, as indians, have a history that we want to own and in that owning, display our dignity - taking the kohinoor back might just help us do that. my dear friend, anil, just recently posted an editorial on the "big brother" debacle happening in the UK now. they put a bollywood actress, shillpa shetty, in the house and it seems her british flatmates have taken to throwing racial slurs at her.
it got me thinking just how sad and confining history can be. we indians are guilty of the same thing as the brits, only we do it amongst each other. muslims, sikhs, hindus. we can hold on to hatred we’ve never experienced personally, all because someone along our path decided that it was better to teach us hate, than it was to teach us love. someone decided for us to let history imprison our hearts and in turn, we at some point thought that it was the right thing to do to carry around a lot of heavy baggage than to question. i feel compassion for those weighed down by hate and prejudice. there is no freedom in hatred and any type of hatred takes us all that farther away from God. love and peace. the distance can be unbearable and tumultuous.
i get the need to reclaim the kohinoor. it’s symbolically reclaiming your dignity, your faith, your culture, your peace. but at some point, do we need to let go of the past and consciously create a brilliant present. the kohinoor is such a beautiful stone, but isn’t love and freedom even more awe-inspiring?
Tags: Uncategorized by Shaheen Sheik
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