I, word lover that I am have been hanging onto words like ‘mantras’ that must be chanted appropriately for units of time inorder to be heard.
This will pass.
It will not affect our work.
Our vision is stronger than this time.
How can libraries be irrelevant ?
The children will return to us.
We will return to the children.
Funding cannot stop.
The team is strong.
Our time has come to shine .
…
This lasted for about a week of the mayhem as Goa shut down, militarised it’s roads, locked down communities, and filled the press with glory stories. My words turned grey and then got darker to a point where I blacked out.
Art from Wave by Suzy Lee
I have been swimming for a while now in a sea of incomprehensible dark matter. I felt that I was swept out by a strong, violent tide that took me far away from what I know and then threw me crashing back onto the shore momentarily. I found that before I could lift myself off my knees and defy the power of the current, I was knocked back again. I had dreams that I was lying on a shore for days on end and the sea would crash over me, strewing me with debris that I had put into her. I could no longer read the signs and when the salt left my eyes, I could make out some shadows on the sands, more mangled and damaged than I, but within a stretch. I feel I could keep lying still. I was sinking cosily into the sand in the way that feet get easily buried as the tide comes and goes and I was secure. The warm currents, the cold currents, the bits and pieces were finding shelters in me and I could lie there.
Was it an indulgence to keep lying down and let everything happen around me? Could I face my fear and trust that the wind of change will be with me to sail through this time? I returned to words.
blessing the boats
(at St. Mary’s)
may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that
This is not an easy time because the existence of the pandemic and the confusion in our larger message systems is disabling any plans we hope to make. We are a community-based organisation that imagines the library as the nexus of all hope and possibility. We have tried to institute direct experience and relationships with people as our main foundation stones and suddenly these very two pillars are compromised.
As I think of our behaviour and our response time to the news on the ground, a part of me recognises that we have failed in our vision. We were incapacitated by our ignorance, fear and confusion to respond to the community who needed us. We chose a safe path with some reluctance. Two weeks later, some of the team members called up community and connected with them. Some families were touched we had called and assured us that they were managing. We recognised that even the minuscule gesture of connecting with people over a phone call was important in this isolating time.
Art from Satya’s Boat by Saraswati Nandini Majumdar, illustrated by Ayeshe Sadr
We have tried to examine why we behaved the way we did. The team members I spoke with were unanimous in their shout – out of ‘ failed leadership’. It is true. I was beached in my head and unable to direct and motivate. We spent time thinking about why the action of this kind needs leadership at all because we have a shared vision and we recognised that in an overwhelming time, it takes a slight resistance, or a difficult team member to topple the decision making.
There was a comment about us as a team being quite great with talk and more talk and indulgences of going around in circles with talk, but nothing really forging into a decision that prompts action.
Our personal doubts, confusions and ignorance but mostly our drive to self survive took over and for over a month, we forgot our shared vision and our commitment. As our roads in Goa slowly open up in some attempt of staggered reintegration we are trying to raise our heads and look towards the horizon.
Many hours of the day I am drawn to the warmth and comfort of lying on the hard sand, confident that I can weather the storm overhead and shelter my own while I lay and then when the salt leaves my eyes, I see the forms around me and recognise that I must rise and must harness this time to continue to walk the shoreline seeking the blessings of the boats.
Art from Satya’s Boat by Saraswati Nandini Majumdar, illustrated by Ayeshe Sadr
Thank you for this evocative and candid sharing.