My usual day oscillates between home and office, which are only 2-3 km apart. The daily experience is the interaction within this limited locality. The front yard where my bike is parked, the walking/biking bridge from Milton to Cambridge, the cycleway towards my son’s school, the road to the office, the bike stand, the kitchen with rice-cooker and the wooden bench on the lakeside where we have lunch together. But my interaction or engagement is much more than these physical spaces. I engage with my home back in India, friends and relatives, news from all over India and worry about the regressive politics gaining momentum day by day. But there are many incidents in the world towards which I am sympathetic to, but not invested emotionally. Be it Afghanistan or Palestine, my perspective was emotionally distant from the issue.
When the pressure started building up on the Russia-Ukraine issue, I started watching the news more often. I found myself reading New York Times and Guardian about the complex geopolitics and engaged in the thoughts of alternate realities. In parallel, I am reading the life story of Angela Merkel, who was brought up in communist East Germany during the cold war. Honestly, I was unaware of the severity of real tensions of the cold war until recently. This gave me an alternate historical perspective, a world that would have been if things did not follow as happened. But the fear of war that can lead to a long term cold war, made these readings more involved. At some point, I was unable to read anything else of work properly. Then the war started.
Social media is such a toxic place. The first thing I read about the war after Russia stated the invasion, was about the right of Russia to do so. Then the newspapers and channels went full-on war-hungry mode. None of my friends and acquaintances was a victim of the current war, and many of them seem to have fun and enthusiasm discussing it. A local news channel even used video game footage claiming as the war footage from Ukraine. After more than a day of unsettling news and discussions, my head was about to explode. I discussed the issue as a distant event but with moral anger and contempt for the war. Yesterday evening, I decided to stop this worry and focus on my limited physical space. Get a coffee from the kitchen, go to the bike stand, bike back home listening to your favourite podcast.
Today at the kitchen, I met a colleague who is actually from Ukraine during lunchtime. I was not sure about asking him about the situation, thinking that he might be tired of telling this to everyone. But another colleague asked him.
“How is your family back home ?”
He replied
“Thanks for asking. Things are very bad. My father cannot walk. My mother is over 70. They heard the announcement to go to the basement. It is impossible for them. The last two days are the worst days of my entire life, I could not sleep at all."
The entire kitchen went silent. He was bursting out. He talked about a Ukrainian troupe on a small island where they refused to stand down in front of the Russian warship and asked them to fuck off. All of them were killed by the Russian army. One person has blown himself to break a bridge to stop the Russian army from entering.
“My mother wants to die before Russia takes over. She had enough in the soviet communist rule. She doesn’t want to go back.”
Suddenly the whole war has become real for us. Millions of people and their hopes are being collapsed. The world may move on assuming that there is nothing we can do about it. But the people have to suffer for decades to come.
The suffering is all around the world. We cannot live if we don’t adapt to having a blind eye to most of the issues. But sometimes, when someone you know gets hurt, things will get more real. Tonight I could not stop myself from thinking about the trauma that my colleague is going through. Staying thousands of miles away from his family caught in the middle of a horrible invasion. Helpless, angry and afraid.
I stand with my colleague, and I stand with the people of Ukraine.
Thanks for writing this. Bringing forth what is going on in all minds and hearts. Hope it triggers some empathy and sanity.
Thought-provoking piece. More power to your colleague!