When Dostoevsky said:
“Isolate as much as you want to become stronger, even if you see that loneliness is an unbearable hell, it is much better than the multiple masks of humans”
Watching How to get to heaven from Belfast and thinking female-led thrillers are definitely much more complex with a lot more to offer. All of us have been wasting our time and energy on men.
The US kidnapped the President of a country in the name of fighting drugs and liberating its people.
The US is bombing and killing thousands in a country in the name of fighting oppressive dictatorship and liberating its people.
The US is starving and cutting off electricity in a country in the name of fighting communism and liberating its people.
The US has been funding, aiding and abetting the history’s first live-streamed genocide in the name of — they don’t even have any justification anymore.
Any world that allows this international terrorism with impunity is a barbaric world.
I must confess that until recently I had never heard of Phool Dei, a spring festival that was celebrated yesterday in the villages of Uttarakhand.
Children gather fresh flowers from the hills and go from house to house placing them on doorsteps, offering a blessing for the household:
“Phool Dei, Chhamma Dei,
Deni Dwar, Bhar Bhakar…” roughly wishing the home prosperity.
In return they receive sweets.
It reminded me a little of Halloween in the U.S., where children go door to door saying “trick or treat.” But what a lovely contrast. Here the children arrive not threatening a prank, or asking first, but giving first. Flowers.
In an age when we speak so much about environmental consciousness, this graceful celebration of spring and nature deserves to be far more widely known.
Just as Holi travelled across India and the world, perhaps Phool Dei should too.
For me, the children of Uttarakhand are my #MondayMotivation
Carrying out mass-scale genocide in Gaza.
Kidnapping the Venezuelan President.
Starving and suffocating Cuba.
Planning to invade Greenland.
Bombing Iran.
What a rogue terrorist state can do and get away with.