Wednesday, September 11, 2019 // The Statement
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Wednesday, September 11, 2019 // The Statement
T
he century is young, but not
naive. Ask any person you know,
who inherited its turn, about its
carnage. They might recall for you mass
shootings and gun violence, or catalogues
of assaulted women around the world who
are forced to hide, or mounting xenophobia
worldwide. They might tell you about
genocides and civil wars, naming Syria
and Sudan on a long list of their griefs.
Make no mistake that promises made in
the 2000s are tied to guns, wrapped in
disrepair, and stacked alongside economic
hardship and nationalist violence. Make
no mistake that the century has been one
of carnage. Millennials have survivor’s
guilt just by being alive.
But be alive we must.
I moved to Delhi for a summer at 20 and
was welcomed by triple-digit temperatures
that held me like the swaddle of a woolen-
blanket. The cab ride from the airport
north was a long journey, with traffic in a
dozen lanes at a near standstill for hours. I
was not bothered by the delay, enraptured
instead by the breadth of movement on the
streets — busses and trucks, motorcycles
filled beyond capacity, cows and their
herders, open-air rickshaws, and sellers
of fruits all sharing the lanes. I felt
charmed by the functioning of a system
which moved with a set of rules I had
yet to understand. “This is why we have
bad air in Delhi,” the driver said, “too
much traffic.” Still, I found the roads
miraculous, density and all. As we passed
through the city, he informed me of the
sight on my right, which without affection
he called “trash mountain.” The Ghazipur
landfill, I would learn, was rivaling the
Taj Mahal in height.
I remember June for its late dinners of
paneer paratha and steaming chai at the
local dhaba, where a sisterhood was born
among women with immeasurable dignity,
strength, and certainty — each woman
an opus of her own. Among the sisters
was Aditi, who always saw things as they
were, and graced every conversation with
a quiet knowingness only she had. Tanya
was bold and unafraid and brought out
others’ truths by admitting to her own.
Vishi could impose levity at any moment,
conjurable only by a quick and pointed
humor like hers. Nivedita used historical
fact to invoke in us a contemplation of our
ethics, reminding us of our situation in the
broader arc of humankind. Meghna gave
us anecdotes laden with a deep sincerity,
and Garuika’s habitual thoughtfulness
combined with her embrace of freedom
made her a fast friend to any lucky enough
to know her. My worthiness for sitting
at the table could be contested, and my
frequent inability to fulfill its social graces
goes undisputed, but the chorus which
resounded from our coming together grew
only louder, clearer and more melodious
with each passing day.
Many breezeless nights we spent on
the dhaba’s lawn, sometimes in shared
quiet contemplation and others loud
laughter. We joined together in the way
sisters often come to unite: by exchanging
stories of our liberation. Praises we sung
for our independent journeys toward
self-fulfillment,
consensual
intimacy
and political freedom. “What a queen!”
someone would say, and the rest of us would
coo in support. Bound in these stories of
small victories we’ve accumulated toward
our autonomy were the harsh anecdotes
of assault that we, too, have accumulated.
But a bruised sister in a sisterhood heals,
and their company made Delhi a home
without fear.
This isn’t to say the city was entirely
free of danger. Heavily armed officials
and being alone in night alleys brought
their risks. It seems that no matter
what corner of the world we sit in, the
unlikelihood of our survival against the
forces-that-be seems something worth
celebrating. To be 20 in this era is to ask,
“why did the gunman skip my school, and
the movie theatre I attended? Why must it
be my democracy, and these borders? By
what accident was I born inland? By what
accident born at all?”
Each of us has a fragile body that
somehow makes it out alive every day,
damaged as we are, by similar forces of
patriarchy or poverty or grief. None of us
is spared, but some of us, it seems, entirely
by accident, have dodged the worst of
it. I know the world is unequal in its
distribution of pain, and that my share has
been comparatively small. But no matter
what size slice of the ache we’ve been
dished, we’ve all been dished it and — if
you’re reading this — been spared some
of it.
And yet, despite our perseverance thus
far, some forces will not spare a single one
of us. The grief which looms, casting its
shadow on the unfolding 21st century, is
climate change.
Not a day passed in Delhi without
reference
to
some
climate-induced
ailment. For those living through the
Carnage Century in an air-conditioned,
Western home with plentiful water and
clean air, the conversation may seem
confined to the dystopia of late-night
news. But in India, where a single summer
bred witnesses to a deadly month-long
heat wave, an outbreak of Encephalitis
claiming over 200 childrens’ lives in
Bihar, Chennai’s fatal water shortage, and
unbreathable air suffocating the capital,
the conversation is a staple.
India’s complexity mimics that of the
new century, riddled with paradoxes and
imposing on us a cognitive dissonance
we must perpetually untangle. The
century knows both heat waves and the
polar vortex; India itself fends off floods
and droughts simultaneously. Paradox is
written into millennials’ way of life. In
every corner of the world, insufferable
pain and unimaginable beauty walk hand
in hand.
Yes, alongside Carnage Century’s aches
are its gifts, too numerous to count and
too frequent to forget. Take for instance
Tanya’s
20th
birthday.
She
danced
through the night, friends in tow, glowing
with a joy unparalleled. How beauty
pervades! That night, she blocked all
climate change tags from her social media.
“My gift to myself,” she said proudly, “is
to pretend for a single day that it isn’t
happening.” (The next morning, she said
grimly, “Back to reality,” and the tagged
news flooded back in.) Another afternoon,
Gauri and I were sharing ice creams, the
sweetness of mango rivaling all other
modes of refreshment, when she laughed
and said, “At least I don’t have to plan for
60. I mean have you ever even pictured it?
Being so old?” I hadn’t. “It’s only going to
get worse, you know,” she said morosely,
slurping sweet pulp from her cup. “More
violent. I didn’t sign up for going through
what we’ll have to go through.” How pain
pervades.
An undying sense of entitlement in the
generation before mine makes it hard to
believe that young people can remark
about their short, climate-bound lifespans.
Gen-Xers assume they will have long lives,
actively plan for them, and feel slighted by
any mention of potential ruin.
“I’ve always wanted to live there,” Vishi
said about the islands near the country’s
southern coast. It was another dhaba
lunch, the paneer gloriously thick and the
chutney miraculously spicy. This was my
classic order at the neighborhood hut, and
I ate it with such focus that I often lost
my sense of time in conversation around
me. “Then no Ph.D. for you,” Gaurika
retorted. “I give them five years before
they go under.” Suddenly swallowing was
a challenge. I pried about the question of
choosing a place to live. “It’s just a choice we
make,” Tanya said. “If I’m not asthmatic,
perhaps I’ll pick Delhi, and willingly give
up that decade I thought I’d have, had the
air quality not prematurely destroyed my
lungs.” I nodded. “But, maybe, instead I
risk it on Bombay, which gives me at least
a decade before the sea takes it back. Not
enough time for children, but who wanted
those anyway?” No matter which way
you spin it, we’re running a race against
time and circumstance that’s stacked
against us, and stacked unfavorably
for those in places dense with careless
multinational corporations, coastal cities
and unbalanced ratios of populations and
resources.
Weeks later, I traveled south to Mumbai
where monsoon season was in full force.
Refreshing, hot rains soaked me to my
bones.
We
played,
laughed,
danced.
Strolling by the ocean was an untamable
joy, though momentary, for the dangers
were pronounced.
BY EMILY RUSSELL, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR
See SISTERHOOD, Page 6B
The sisterhood of carnage
century
PHOTO S BY DANYEL THARAKAN