"This Too Shall Pass", I Won't Say
They say, Delhi rises from its own ashes, like the legendary Phoenix-- probably a statement with some semblance of historicity. This imagery is often conveniently used to refer to how the city was destroyed and ravaged numerous times in the past, and how it showed immense resilience in rebuilding itself and regaining its lost self. But I ask, what about the people? What about the lives destroyed, shattered and forced to rehabilitate again and again? There is not an iota of doubt that these experiences of the peoples of Delhi have been disruptive and transformative, not to mention, prolonged and painful. The present devastation of Delhi, my beloved city, is unlike its historical precedents. Indeed, the situation seems to have acquired warlike emergency and the piling bodies of dead brings to mind at once the victims of war. All of this makes me believe that probably it's true that we have come to view the limits of the anthropocene. What about those who didn't die? Those who...