Sometimes it feels like the world is collapsing under the weight of
uncertainty, mis-trust, and hatred.

As I move through my community with my family, it is not uncommon
for heads to turn for another look.

Sometimes curiosity gazes back at us,
sometimes the glances are harder.

Who are you?   Why are you here?  Or, We know who you are:
furtive glances and steely stares seem to say.

In these moments, the air feels thick enough to be cut by a knife.
Instead we have to take a deep breath and just look straight back, with
a nod or a smile.

Wordless words gesture back – fighting off the dark moment with
lightness.  What kind of jujitsu is this?

Sometimes the uncertainty is un-bare-able.
I am afraid of what the future holds for us – ALL OF US.

What should I do?  How should we struggle?

You also faced a world filled with suspicion, dislike, fear and hatred.

You fought with all you had – giving up a gentle father to the cause of
freedom and justice.

SACRIFICE

Then you fought along with your sons – SAVA LAKH.

Your fight was NOT

for land,

or wealth,

or power,

But for

dignity,

freedom,

peace.

IN THE END, you put down your sword and once again picked up your
pen – with a razor sharp point and a plume soft like silk.

Your words cut through a dark night of intolerance and hatred so that
the light of REASON and COMPASSION could shine through.

A blue-black ink eclipsing a crimson river flowing through the land.

You were NOT an ideologue–
puffed up with your own greatness.

You were NOT fighting for land, riches, power.

Your battle subsided… Ours rages on…

and it is being fought with a double-edged sword.
Not of the Miri and Piri kind.

It is the double edge of double standards.

We are fighting, Kaurs and Singhs,
back to back in the doorways of our communities.

Singhs facing outwards to profiling, humiliation, or worse.
Kaurs, facing inwards, too often tormented by a silent cancer of self-doubt.

The crippling effects of being

side-lined,

de-valued,

raped,

aborted.

Just the thought of these sisters, daughters, mothers living under a
cloud so heavy, so ominous, like an anchor weighs me down. My mind
clouded, my body slow.

But I have to bare it – worry about it, yell about it, write about it.

I imagine how you must have felt in your last days living alone.
In an encampment so far from the home of your father and mother.
Your family scattered to the winds.

The despair of a world caving in.

Where does one begin? What should we do?

When I lift my head, and look around me.
When I see Kaurs and Singhs thinking and acting to make the world a
better place,

I know that we have already started.

We picked up your pen – with a razor sharp point and a plume soft like silk.

Our words must cut through the dark night of invisibility and self-doubt
So that the light of REASON and COMPASSION will shine through.

Blue-black ink eclipsing a crimson river flowing through the land.