The World of Layla Anwar
Dear Layla,
Even while sitting at a safe distance, I still feel inside a deep awe towards you.
Why is it so?
You, an Iraqi, a young lady and for you, life and writings are nothing but the pain of your bleeding nation.
For me, a middle-aged Indian, it is a pastime, relaxed in an easy-chair of a self-imposed exile and done at my own leisure. Is it because of that distance that I feel that awe?
I am sure that you cannot abuse me in the public, nor you can deprive me of my own trifle pleasures. No way. Still I feel the awe. It is so because, you are experiencing the trauma of a deep and great suffering. And myself and my people, just enacting and wailing on our own silly miseries.
Mostly, it is always the other way round. Those on stage enact and the spectator goes through the experiences unfolded on the stage, right? Here, right on the stage, you are the one experiencing these hard times, and we, the unsympathazing spectators, sit in the crystallized silence in the dark togetherness. You and your people are the characters in this unmerciful story. Nay, You are the story itself. We, the inhuman audience.
Maybe, at some other age, a more sensitive generation might come and replace us, I am sure. And they would be definitely asking me and my people, why did we abandon you and your people to the merciless claws of history, and I am sure that we would not have a single reply for them. Perhaps I may blurt out an easy confession, that, dear,it all happened so or something like that.
From you too, they will demand, as to how come that we, your contemporaries, become such miserable eunechs to have left you (and your people) alone on the street of history to fight it out yourself. And to which, you might as well reply in that inimitable style of your own "Tell them to fuck off, it is enough that we have ourselves to fight it out, that is more than enough". I am sure that you will say that.
Next time some personality development evangelists drop in somewhere here - one or other of those nuts always throng this City, Layla (by the way, we call this city, City that Cares) - I will ask them about ways to get rid of this self humiliation. Even if I have to pay more for that, no problem. I can at least have my own bit of peace of mind. So far, so good.
Salute,
To read and know more of Layla, please visit here
Even while sitting at a safe distance, I still feel inside a deep awe towards you.
Why is it so?
You, an Iraqi, a young lady and for you, life and writings are nothing but the pain of your bleeding nation.
For me, a middle-aged Indian, it is a pastime, relaxed in an easy-chair of a self-imposed exile and done at my own leisure. Is it because of that distance that I feel that awe?
I am sure that you cannot abuse me in the public, nor you can deprive me of my own trifle pleasures. No way. Still I feel the awe. It is so because, you are experiencing the trauma of a deep and great suffering. And myself and my people, just enacting and wailing on our own silly miseries.
Mostly, it is always the other way round. Those on stage enact and the spectator goes through the experiences unfolded on the stage, right? Here, right on the stage, you are the one experiencing these hard times, and we, the unsympathazing spectators, sit in the crystallized silence in the dark togetherness. You and your people are the characters in this unmerciful story. Nay, You are the story itself. We, the inhuman audience.
Maybe, at some other age, a more sensitive generation might come and replace us, I am sure. And they would be definitely asking me and my people, why did we abandon you and your people to the merciless claws of history, and I am sure that we would not have a single reply for them. Perhaps I may blurt out an easy confession, that, dear,it all happened so or something like that.
From you too, they will demand, as to how come that we, your contemporaries, become such miserable eunechs to have left you (and your people) alone on the street of history to fight it out yourself. And to which, you might as well reply in that inimitable style of your own "Tell them to fuck off, it is enough that we have ourselves to fight it out, that is more than enough". I am sure that you will say that.
Next time some personality development evangelists drop in somewhere here - one or other of those nuts always throng this City, Layla (by the way, we call this city, City that Cares) - I will ask them about ways to get rid of this self humiliation. Even if I have to pay more for that, no problem. I can at least have my own bit of peace of mind. So far, so good.
Salute,
To read and know more of Layla, please visit here
Labels: Iraq and these Hard Times, Layla
posted by Rajeeve Chelanat at
Saturday, February 02, 2008
2 Comments:
Nice beginning, Rajeeve
Layla Anwar's writings need no introduction, though it need much to be popularized, especially when the whole word keeps a meaningful silence over the invasion, rape and maiming of a great sovereign country by a hand-picked war mongers.
Invite your attention to her blogs.
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