the pitt but i have a sideblog again: @asystoleinthepitt
sm other stuff <3
tag for my original posts: #kojakspeaking
other info about me:
adult
call me kojak, or asa if u want
i am in EST (aka utc -5 aka east coast of US)
the name kojak comes from the stephen king novel The Stand where a dog shows up for like less than a page named kojak who is named after a cop from a tv show from the early 70s. idk never seen it. thought it was a cool name tho
! the random dates on posts are when i added them to my queue !
please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.
you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.
first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.
now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:
in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.
and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.
and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.
it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:
• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.
• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.
• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.
• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.
• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.
• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.
and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.
what i'm asking:
if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.
if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.
india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.
A not so brief account of my experience at the Delhi protest on the 20th of July:
CW: violence, police brutality
3 of my friends and I, all of us resident doctors in various disciplines, had made extremely last minute plans to get to the walk that was organised for the 20th. I thankfully have a friend who lives fairly close to Jantar Mantar, and we were able to leave our things at their place while we were at the protest. We had decided to leave our phones at their house-since all of us had been extremely critical of the current government online, as well as in correspondences to our friends and family-and one of my friends carried a burner phone, in order to record the protest.
We reached Jantar Mantar at around 2:00am, fearing that the police may stop people from entering the site later in the day (this was of course what happened), and we milled through the crowd, talking to some of the other protestors at the site. At some point, we realised that the police presence had increased significantly, and the rapid action forces, had also been deputised to "deal" with us. At this point, I honestly still wasn't feeling scared at all. We were surrounded by several like minded people, who were also opposed to the current ruling party. It genuinely felt like we could speak with ease, for the first time in 12 years. We then found out, that the cops had started welding the barricades together. I'll admit that this is when I felt genuine fear. The minute we heard about this happening, the people around me immediately started talking about Jallianwala Bagh. Jallianwala Bagh, for those who don't know about the massacre, was a peaceful site of protest, where a large group of Indians had gathered to protest, during the Indian fight for independence. General Dyer, had then ordered all exits to be sealed, and opened fire on the protestors. A lot of what India faces under this government, feels eerily familiar to what she faced under British colonial rule.
Eventually, some of the protestors were able to push over the barricades, and we were able to start trying to move towards the parliament. That's unfortunately, when the violence began. The cops and RAF, started very indiscriminately lathi charging the crowd. There was no violence from our side. The cops had even parked a truck full of massive rocks, right by the protest site, probably hoping that the protestors would make use of them. In the end, we only have videos of the police themselves, chucking the rocks to make it look like the protest had been violent. And even after getting beaten up, the only responses I saw from the protestors, were pleas to be allowed to continue the march. We saw a lot of young students, face police brutality for the first time, and have to quickly come to the understanding, that the cops were not there to help them.
My friends and I had primarily gone, because we knew the cops would attempt to attack the protestors, and we wanted to provide whatever little medical aid we could. We had reached the site with 6 bags of saline, and at least 50 rolls of gauze, among other supplies. We were completely out by the time we left at night. I saw a lot of scalp and head injuries-it seemed like the wonderful police had gone out of their way to aim at protestors heads. I also saw a concerning number of children who had been injured by them. I counted 6 cases of eardrum rupture, and more bruises and cuts than I could keep track of. It was while I was attending to one of the injured protestors, that I was hit with the lathi for the first time. They saw very clearly, that I was in my doctor's coat, stethoscope in my pocket, and was treating a patient. They still tried to physically assault me. It was my fellow protestors, who immediately came to my defense, and got in between the police and I. This was our reality at the time. The only people we could rely on, were each other. A friend of mine was almost carted off by the police, to be placed under unlawful detention. He, like all of our little group, was only treating the injuries of the protestors. It was only because of the protest, once again, that he was able to escape from their hold, and disappear back into the crowd. My friend who carried his burner phone, had it snatched from his hand, stomped on, and was then asked who was paying him to be there. We were a fair distance away from the tear gas shells, so we didn't experience the effects of the expired canisters the cops threw at the protests who were closer to the parliament. I found out after reaching the airport, that it was the nearby gurudwara and mosque, who were sheltering the protestors, and treating the inflammation inflicted by the tear gas. The same people, the media like to call Khalistanis or Pakistanis, they were the people who stepped up to help the protestors who were getting gassed by the cops.
We did not make it to the parliament, it's true. The delhi police and the RAF, who had all conveniently "lost" their name tags, made sure of it. But honestly, I can't find any sort of disappointment in myself. For the past few years, I have felt so alone, wondering why the people simply accepted the harm this government has inflicted on our country and our communities. But I came to realise that I wasn't alone, and I never had been. There I was, surrounded by people of all ages, who wanted better for this country. And it filled me with a sense of patriotism, that I hadn't felt in so long. These were ordinary people, who had taken leave from their jobs and studies, and were here, right beside me, demanding a better India.
Today I returned to my hospital, and to the outside observer, things may seem to have not changed in the slightest. But something feels different. Maybe I'm being foolish, or overly optimistic. I returned with nothing much to show, but a slightly depleted bank account, and a large bruise on my shoulder, but yesterday felt like an awakening. The people who want to claim that the 20th was the death of democracy, are so incredibly mistaken, because this is just the beginning. Now and forever इंक़लाब ज़िन्दाबाद.
hey kitten. daddy needs to talk to you. your kink blog is great, but you are not highlighting the words correctly. kitten. stop highlighting. this is shit. did you seriously highlight that period. kitten.
I love your pitt opinions so much. What are some mowalsh hills you will die on?
oh baby i have so many (also thank you). here are some:
they wouldn't have kids. i only get this vision if it's outside canonverse and in an au where their jobs aren't such a pillar to their characters. i could maybe see emery having one or two, but i only really see samira having them when she's 35+, and still i'm not a fan of that for her character/it doesn't sit well with the samira we saw on screen. i still like reading fics of them as parents though.
they are NERDS !!!!!!!!! they're both such dorks! i die on this hill every damn second. a lot of fan content makes emery out to be this freezing cold nonchalant robot and then samira is this soft gentle doormat. i rebuke this. they're both argumentative and snappy and a bit bratty but that's what makes them so interesting (to me).
they have polar opposite taste in movies and books and music. genuinely so different. movie nights are awful to witness.
emery is a HEAVY sleeper and samira comes home to find her knocked out on the couch at 1pm wearing samira's college sweatshirt and sweatpants 75% of the time.
samira will be minding her business at work and emery will walk by and quite literally yank her into a closet to hookup. samira is the one who is very much "we are at work we shouldn't be doing this" and emery is more "they'll cope i want to hear you'
samira hasn't had to fill her gas tank up since they've gotten together. emery fills it for her and cleans her car and changes her oil without samira having to ask and samira finds it very Hot to watch emery work on her car (who wouldn't)
i see them having a BIG wedding. i know a lot of people are not on this train but i feel like emery has a huge family and samira has a huge (extended) family and both don't want to cause drama with anyone so its a big guest list. they take a 2 week honeymoon after where they don't speak to anyone besides each other though.
emery wouldn't move hospitals to be with samira in canon. i am team samira gets a job at presby and emery stays at ptmc.
emery hates yappers and small talk and noise but loves how samira never stops talking around her. that's Her Yapper.
even though emery is on nights she wakes up a lot to get to hang out and go out and do stuff with samira. she'll get off at 8am from a 24 and you can bet your ass she's sitting watching her beautiful girlfriend try an 9 dollar matcha at a new cafe at noon. she yawns during all of these outings but reassures samira she's not tired (she falls asleep on the drive home).
big hikers and campers. emery grew up doing it, and samira gets super into going on long walks during this 4th year of residency turmoil. so once they're together they love going out and doing it!
i'll cut myself off here, but i could talk about these two all night. i love them.
