It was a moonlit midsummer night, as the church bells clanged to the toll of midnight & the owls hooted spotting their prey. Homeward, he quietly slipped down the listless streets, when he was suddenly met by an apparition so grotesquely strange, he was both transfixed & horrified. There stood a young lady in a flowing white saree, her skin deathly pale, her lips of cherry wine & her long hair was velvet black. She looked like deathโs bride. But her eyes. Those scared him the most. For they were white orbs of nothingness that gleamed in the menacing moonlight. She pointed one long skeletal finger at the man & commenced chanting a spell in dialects no mortal had ever lived long enough to learn.
Thatโs how most ghost stories begin, but not this one.
For mine finds its origins in a true story, one passed on through generations, like a precious heirloom of gold or a treasured secret of olde. The story begins in a tiny Indian village during the wee hours of the morning when dawn has yet to break & most are in blissful worldly slumber. A boy slowly awakens from his little cot on the verandah, where he sleeps to escape the summer night heat. The cause of his disturbed slumber, a little black cat with eyes of emerald green, pawing at his hair, urging him to awaken. The cat jumps off the cot & saunters away into the darkness, towards the sugarcane fields that surround the village. The animal looks back at the boy, its eyes glittering, reflecting the pale moonlight like magical fairy lights. It inclines its feline head & beckons.
Follow.
Follow.
The boy was spellbound. His limbs move of their own volition & he begins following the cat into the eerie blackness. His eyes adjust to the semi-darkness as he marks the outline of his beastly escort.
He pauses.
His small feet sink into wet mud, as he wonders, where am I being led to?
He pauses again.
I should turn back, he says to himself. Papa will be worried.
As if sensing the boyโs hesitation, the animal looks back again. Its hypnotic eyes now glitter in light shades of blue, like the waters of a pristine lagoon.
Follow.
Follow.
The boy was bewitched once more.
Blindly following the creature, to its an unearthly destination, when the cat quickened its slow pace & broke into a run.
Wait!
Wait!
The boy thought as he ran after the being.
He had almost caught up with it when he heard a blood-curdling howl that ripped through the stillness of the night. Where the cat once stood, there now was an old crippled man, dressed in a crumpled white dhoti. His back was bent & he leaned heavily on a twisted walking stick.
โGo home, boyโ, he whispered in an ancient broken voice & disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.
The boy was befuddled by all he had seen & retraced his steps to his cot on the verandah, deciding to investigate the puzzling occurrences the following morning.
In the bright light of day, the boy revisited the field he had been led to. And to his utter dread, he glimpsed a gaping open well, not five steps from where he had followed the apparition the previous night. He refused to consider what might have happened if the old man had not intervened, for he had heard many ghastly tales of villagers being drowned in the same well. He then fled the field in rapid haste.
In a world where instead of causing deaths & infection, the corona virus imparted strange behavior among the Earthians.
28th Yraurbef, 1202
Dear Winston,
I long to be on your side of the city, studying botany in the cool forests of green & gazing up at the starry nights with my head against the soft green grass. I hope you have found your escape, from pain & life. For you were never really one of The Infected, I know that now. The propaganda TV declares that it is winter, but the Earth sings the song of Spring, while the state refuses to acknowledge the existence of Earthian Warming. But these are one of their lesser faults, which I shall narrate to you in detail, knowing that very soon this letter will burn to ashes in one of The Kingdomsโ many Towers of Destruction that line the outskirts of this town.
I know you enjoyed stories, especially ones with horror, but would you still like them if they came true? Those were the words playing in my mind, as I arrived at your cell in a Kingdom Containment Asylum two years ago when a deadly virus of unknown origins had begun spreading like wildfire. It all began in the Wuzan Province of the Western Kingdom, they said, with approximately one million Wuzanians quarantined with symptoms ranging from delusions to schizophrenia. Being a young psychologist, I volunteered to join the Medical Team to stop the Retourovirus (A top official called it โThe Sinese Virusโโ). They imposed a large-scale lockdown & asked all Earthians to stay at home for months creating an atmosphere of panic, unemployment & poverty. But this was only the beginning.
We Earthians slowly began forgetting what freedom & liberty truly were, as the Kingdom grew stronger, stifling all opposition by declaring new classes of Earthians as โThe Infectedโ - The Journalitz (packed to Asylums for brainwashing & ignorance sessions), The Millionaires (The Kingdom took over Amason & Koogle for violation of virus protocols), The Judiciary (The Kingdom is always right), The Feminists (Women being equal to men was an outdated concept for the Kingdom), The Atheists (Rabbits are God, & God is Rabbit for The Kingdom) and the list goes on. And there I stood in my over-sized hazmat outside your door, waiting to see my first infected patient, you.
Over the next six weeks, they put you through immense psychological & physical torture, but your words remain etched in my mind despite the twisted newspaper tabloids & speeches I hear every morning. You said there was a time when we didnโt have to wear microchip palm implants to track our locations, so we donโt meet any of The Infected. That Oliver could have married Elio if he wanted to though the Kingdom would never allow that now. A time when there was freedom of speech, & we did not need to put our faith in The Kingdom. You said that women once had the right to vote, & we could go anywhere we wanted without a certificate to prove our sanity. They saw I was growing emotionally close to my patient, & the next week you were sanitized & I was asked if I had forgotten about you. But I lied.
You were right, Winston. There never was a pandemic or a virus. It was all in our minds. The last day I spoke to you, you told me of The Fallen, a bunch of rebels that dared defy the Kingdom. I laughed at that time, calling it a suicide mission. But here I am leading The Fallen, with my rusty pen touching the yellowing paper for the last time, in memory of you, as we rise at daybreak in The Final Revolt against the Kingdom. I shall not return alive from this military assignment, nor do I seek to live in a world without hope. For this time, we have engineered a real biological virus, & I have named it after you, Winston. Let the war begin.
Witness me, Winston.
Julia
Authors Note: Winston & Julia have been taken as a tribute to the novel 1984.
The 2002 war/drama film, The Pianist, directed by Roman Polanski, who himself is a Holocaust survivor, vividly portrays the painful reality of possessing a Jewish identity in Nazi-occupied Poland during WW2.
Through an autobiographical look at the life of the celebrated Polish pianist, Wลadysลaw Szpilman, the audience travels back in time to one of the darkest periods in human history โ The Holocaust (1941-45). In the establishing scene, we are introduced to Wladyslaw as he plays one of his compositions live on the Warsaw Radio. The initial tranquility of the scene is harshly interrupted when the Radio station is bombed, signaling beginning of the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939.
Life begins to worsen for the Jews at Warsaw, as we watch the gradual segregation of Wladyslawโs family in society, using their lives as a microcosm to portray the harrowing experiences that millions of Jews suffered under Hitlerโs reign. From evening curfews to the Star of David (Magen David) emblems, Wlasyslawโs family was โbranded as Jewsโ to emphasize their inferiority in the eyes of Nazi Germans, often making Jews the victims of public beatings & humiliation.
Following the forced movement of Jews to the Warsaw Ghetto (The Jewish Residential District in Warsaw) in 1940, the Szpilmanโs had to cope with dingy rooms, acute food shortages & poverty as the Germans built a wall around the Ghetto, preventing outside contact. The movie uses graphic & riveting imagery with the minimal use of blood & gore. Take the scene when the German soldiers raid & murder Wladyslawโs neighbors, & throw a disabled man in a wheelchair out the balcony. The very action is alarming, revealing the horror the Szpilmanโs felt at that point through the characters' expressions of dread.
With respect to the mis-en-scene, the film paints a somber setting using a black & grey color palette, dull lighting & carefully positioned medium & long shots to realistically describe the physical & emotional torture the inmates of the Warsaw Ghetto faced. Having been exposed to brutality & violence on a daily basis, the fading remnants of humanity eventually die away, leaving behind apathy & death in its wake. We see that Wladyslaw & his fellow inmates are slowly unfazed by the numerous human corpses lying on the streets, & the sick & starving children in their overcrowded dwellings.
After months of staying at the Warsaw Ghetto, Wladyslaw was separated from his family while they were herded into cattle trains to be deported to the Treblinka Extermination camp. Here, Wladyslaw says the heart-rending line, โI wish I knew you betterโ to his sister Helina, little knowing that he would be seeing his family for the last time. Wladyslaw then finds work as a slave labourer at the Warsaw Ghetto, & goes into hiding in Warsaw city with the aid of few loyal friends. Here, weโre shown an emotionally charged scene of Wladyslaw beginning to play the piano in his hide-out, at the grave risk of being discovered by the Germans. However, we breathe a sigh of relief when his fingers only float over the keys, never hearing the musical notes he longs to listen to.
Towards the end of the film, we experience the conflict Wladyslaw feels when heโs asked to play the piano in the ruins of the Ghetto by a German officer, Captain Wilm Hosenfeld. Here, Wladyslaw beautifully plays the theme song, Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor. Contrary to the audienceโs expectations, the officer instead of reporting or shooting Wladyslaw on site, helps sustain the starving pianist by bringing him food & clothing on a regular basis. Thus, the cinematography & direction has been carefully shot & edited to show the viewers the truth of what happened during the Holocaust with painful clarity & honesty.
In the eye-opening documentary on โThe Lunchbox Legendsโย we are introduced to the bustling, fast-paced world of Dabbawalaโs like Kiran Gavande & Dashrath Paardhi, who are members of the Mumbai Dabbawala Association.ย
In a nutshell, the Dabbawalas perform a food delivery service which undertakes the timely delivery & return of lunch boxes to & from offices all over the Mumbai city, using various modes of transport such as cycles & local trains. Every day, the Dabbawalas begin a relay race against time, following the motto of โError is Horror'', which has earned them a Forbes Six Sigma efficiency rating i.e. Only one error in six million deliveries!ย
This seemingly impossible feat has survived the test of time, thanks to the excellent working model the Dabbawallas have set up. The Dabbawalas work in teams that collect lunchboxes from homes & canteens, & transport them to a main sorting location. At this point, a simple but ingenious coding system comes into play, wherein the lunchboxes are painted with different colours & letters based on their delivery destination address. The next part of the journey consists of the lunchboxes being sent to the local Dabbawalas via the jam-packed network of Mumbai trains, to be delivered to the offices just in time for lunch. Then the lunchboxes are returned to their collection points, all in the time frame of three hours.ย ย
The Dabbawalas also follow an important set of management principles, making them a rare association that has never gone on strike during its existence (save one time when Anna Hazare was on hunger strike) They aim at keeping operational costs low, showing cooperation & commitment to the goal of serving the customer (Customer is King of Kings) & being humble. Thus, the Dabbawalas of Mumbai, through their simple working model, continue keeping the working population of Mumbai fed on time, every time.
God's insatiable craze,
For fashion runs like oceans.
He has a face-lift,
Do liposuction & implants,
Have a tummy tuck,
And even brigthens his teeth.
All in the name of fashion,
Its just crazy fashion.
Why this rat race?
Why tampering with humanly beauty?
Is Man no more perfect?
Are these really fashion?
No, they are destruction.
In the name of fashion,
Its just fashion crazy.
While thinking about what to write about this International Women's Day, instead of writing about what women have done, this time I have chosen to thank our mothers, sisters, & grandmothers for what they have not done.ย
I thank all those strong women out there, who did not leave their jobs after marriage, & continued pursuing their career even after giving birth to their first child. I write for those brave old women, who taught themselves to read & write, despite the drawbacks of child marriage and the burden of their myriad domestic chores.
I salute those fearless women, who took not the path most trodden, instead choosing careers in the armed forces, medicine, business and every other field, showing the world that women are equal to men, in every aspect. I stand strong with those independent young girls, who brave all odds to walk twenty kilometres every day to be educated. I write to those who rose persevered to rise above social and caste oppression, to build their empires brick by brick. I shout out to those silenced women, who dare to raise their voices against sexual abuse and the blatant sexism that prevails in our society.ย
I praise those strong, independent women, who are the protagonists of their own life stories and follow their dreams. ย I write for those women who regularly exercise their right to vote, showing solidarity with the women suffragettes who fought for their right to vote back in the 19th Century. Some great battles for women's rights have been won, but many more are yet to be fought.ย
Pretty eyes framed by monochrome masks appraise with curiosity the mysterious stranger seated beside them.ย
Ever wondering what the face behind the physical mask must look like, but deep within, we desire to know what lies behind those well-painted mental masks.ย
Regardless of the fancy facade showing lives of happiness, joy & fulfillment, our unique personalities are often forbidden knowledge, like bygone civilizations from a forgotten era.ย
Some hide their true colors, however beautiful or bizarre, fearing ridicule & embarrassment, allowing parts of their minds to perish like dying embers of a campfire.ย
Others reveal bits & pieces of themselves like a puzzle, to be carefully pieced together to be admired.ย
Never allowing more than a tiny sliver of sunlight, into the Amazons of their mind.ย
And seeking camouflage at the first sight of danger, blending into oblivion like covert chameleons.ย
Little known are them that let their psychedelic colors show, for being authentic & honest with yourself isnโt always a piece of cake.ย
Ink spilled, cracked & broken, we strive to white wash all that went wrong, deceiving ourselves with predictable plot twists, creating another rectangular orange brickย in the wall.ย
Thinking rarely of the masterpieces we could have painted, with hues not a soul had ever seen, a painting that was truly yours & yours alone.ย
Years later youโll remember those rare times, you caught a glimpse behind those masks, in the midnight masquerade of life.
Success, a seven-letter word that represents a zillion different things to the billions of individuals inhabiting Planet Earth.ย
From being rich & famous, to possessing envious youth & beauty, success is an ideal that appeals to both individuals young, old, rich & poor. But success is a standard that only a handful of dedicated individuals are capable of achieving. So what makes this minority of successful individuals different from others who are unable to fulfill their dreams or desires? Is success a game of luck or does it involve years of hard work & planning behind the scenes?
To solve this million-dollar question on the cause for success, we will consider the life stories of three of my favorite Shark Tank investors :
สแดสแดสแด สแดสแดแดแด แดแด
Croatian born Businessman Robert Herjavec, moved to Canada with his family at the age of eight, with a single suitcase & only 20 dollars in cash. From the beginning, Robertโs life seems to have been โunluckyโ in the conventional sense. He was a poor non-English speaking immigrant who could never achieve wealth or success for those who believe that great wealth can only be inherited from rich spouses or parents. Fast forward a few years, after a job as a waiter & being fired as the General manager at Logiquest, Robert founded BRAK Systems, an Internet security software, from the basement of his very home! Then in 2000, he went on to sell BRAK Systems to AT&T Canada for an epic 30.2 million dollars, granting Robert Herjavec the title of a millionaire. But this deal was no fluke, for Robert now owns the Herjavec Group, one of Canada's fastest-growing technology companies with $200 million in annual revenue. As Robert himself said, โBe good at one thing, then be great at that one thing.โ And the journey to greatness involves practice, adaptability & the will to keep going.ย
สแดสสสแด แดแดสแดแดสแดษด
At first glance, Barbraโs life seems to be one riddled with failures, she was ridiculed at school for being dyslexic & later her boyfriend (& business partner) left to marry her secretary. She then founded The Corcoran Group, a real estate firm in New York, which she sold to NRT for a whopping 66 million dollars in 2001. From selling real estate online & competing for a place on Shark Tank to rewarding employee efforts in her company, Barbra believes that her most phenomenal successes, in fact, happened on the hills of failure. As Barbra herself puts it, "I've learned to think of failure as a lucky charm, because the flipside of that is always the biggest opportunity." What matters is how we perceive & handle failure in our lives.
แดแดสแด แดแดสแดษด
Markโs first rendezvous with business occurred at the age of 12 when he began selling garbage bags door-to-door, to pay for an expensive pair of basketball shoes. Fast forward, in 1999, Mark who was now part of Broadcast.com helped launch the first live-streamed Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Following which during the dot com boom, Broadcast.com was acquired by Yahoo! for a stupendous 5.7 billion dollars in Yahoo! Stock propelling Mark into the category of billionaires. Mark has always been open about the struggles & sacrifices faced by those who dare to become entrepreneurs & follow their goals, with hard times a part & parcel of the journey. As Mark himself says, โYou gotta be willing to make those sacrifices on the road to success.โ
Therefore, success is the engine that runs on hours of hard work, fueled by thousands of failures that lead to that one brilliant idea that finally works, & then the onlookers attribute your success to that imposter โluckโ. I end with a quote by Zig Zeigler, โSuccess occurs when opportunity meets preparation.โ And identifying those opportunities takes hard work & sacrifice, & rarely ever is luck an integral factor.
Features :ย ย A winding trek up to the summit of a golden hill reveals the Rajhansagad Yellur Fort, built by the Ralta Dynasty & later renovated in stone by Asad Khan Lari, a Persian noble of Bijapur. The fort walls offers a panoramic view of the vast countryside, framed by blue hills in the background which makes for a dozen insta-worthy pics. The fort had been used as an outpost to detect invading armies from Goa & Karwar. As the legend goes, there once existed a secret underground tunnel linking the fort all the way to Belgavi Fort, which of course, has never been found.ย ย
Features :ย The Kamal Basti is a beautiful Jain temple intricately carved out of stone. The Basti has been dated back to the 10th Century Ralta Dynasty (1204 AD), & remains a must-see Chalukya architectural wonder while visiting the Belgaum Fort. At the same location, one can also visit the Chikki Basti, another temple-like structure made of stone, as seen below.
Features :ย If youโre an avid bird watcher or a Lake Placid fan like me, the Rani Chennamma Mini-Zoo is the place for you. The spacious zoo boasts of a variety of bird species, turtles, deer, humans (the visitors of course) & a couple of alligators lazing in the Sun. Last time I visited, a Tiger Safari was being constructed, might be worth a shot!ย
Features :ย On the way to the Belgaum Fort, find the perfect picnic spot at Fort Lake, also known as Kote Kere. Go boating or simply take a walk in the park, which is especially beautiful in the evenings.ย ย
โIf you are in a bad mood go for a walk. If you are still in a bad mood, go for another walk.โ - Hippocrates
From our nomadic ancestors to the present Gen Z, exercise has played a vital role in strengthening the human mind & body. My rendezvous with fitness & exercise began when I had enrolled in badminton coaching at my school, way back in seventh grade (badminton being my preferred sport). At first, I was tremendously excited by the proposition of playing match after match with other players, & learning new moves & tactics. To my dismay, the one-hour coaching consisted of forty-five minutes of exhausting warm-ups & shadow footwork (in other words swatting flies) with only fifteen minutes of real badminton practice!
I gave up coaching after a month of fatigue & weary muscles, & steadily began putting on weight. Weight gain is quite like a thief, you don't know you're putting on weight until subtle signs show up, your favorite clothes are not fitting, your mom's not buying chocolates, & your friends say you look different (but in a "good" way). My bruised self-esteem began plummeting, like an airplane with a broken engine, and what was broken was my perceived inability to control my weight. I wasn't fat, but I wasn't fit either, and I felt miserable about my appearance most of the time. Years passed & I finally decided to give badminton coaching another chance, but this time I enrolled at a private coaching centre. In the beginning, I was sceptical, expecting a similar experience as my previous coaching, but I was pleasantly surprised.
The badminton coach taught us a routine, beginning with a fifteen-minute warm-up, followed by eleven-point badminton matches in quick succession. While we played our matches, the coach corrected our serves & moves, giving us more practice on the court. I enjoyed badminton coaching from that day on, & the results of two hours of daily exercise were marvellous! My physical health improved, I was losing weight & building up my stamina. My muscles hurt for the first few weeks, but my mind refused to give up. I wanted to be in control of my weight & my appearance. I cut down on my diet, & ate healthier alternatives. On the badminton court, I had transformed from a clumsy girl with a badminton racket, into a skilled & competitive player. My choice of sport was a good one.
As a sport, badminton has over 300 million players worldwide & enjoys immense popularity with Saina Nehwal, Srikanth Kidambi, Lee Chong Wei & ย PV Sindhu being familiar names in the badminton arena. An interesting study carried out at Baylor Universityโs Department of Physical Education (USA) found that during 20 minutes of badminton, players made at least 350 changes in direction of 90 degrees or more, burning about 450 calories per hour. Personally, playing badminton in the evenings was a stress-buster, & helped clear my mind & rejuvenate my body after a long day at work. I had also begun playing friendly matches with my friends & neighbors, where I built a rapport with so many new people, I wouldn't have otherwise met. ย
I continued my badminton coaching till the coronavirus wreaked havoc in March, with all public places shutting down for the foreseeable future, including my badminton coaching centre. But, physical exercise had become an essential part of my routine by now, & I was determined to continue exercising. So every day, I began running on the treadmill at the gym in my apartment building from 5-6 pm, to compensate for my lack of badminton coaching. The treadmill had two benefits. Firstly, I could test & improve my stamina by controlling the pace of the running & jogging. Secondly, I could work off the laziness that creeps in during lockdown. I started my work-out with five minutes of dumbbell exercise, followed by ten minutes of jogging on the treadmill, which I gradually increased to twenty minutes of continuous jogging. Research shows that 150 minutes of physical activity per week lowers an individuals risk of all-cause mortality by 33% when compared to those who are not physically active.
Few weeks later, the COVID19 was declared a pandemic, & the gym also was shut down, which created a monotonous routine for myself: wake up late, binge-watch reruns on television, eat, sleep & repeat. I undertook no physical activity but soon realized that I had to do something to keep weight gain at bay. So, I began practicing work-out routines from YouTube, & found some to be quite effective. These exercises, combined with a pair of weights I had borrowed from the gym, allowed me to exercise at home.
Fast forward a few months, I now take long walks/jogs on the weekends, basking in the evening sun (with a mask on of course), as I explore the surrounding roads & neighborhoods for a change of scene. In the end, fitness is a lifestyle that requires consistent effort to achieve the end goal, that is physical & mental health. And the journey is worth it!
"I began to realize that partition was surely more than just a political divide, or a division of properties, of assets & liabilities. It was also, to use a phrase that survivors use repeatedly, 'A Division Of Hearts'."
ย - Urvashi Butalia โThe Other Side of Silenceโ
The partition of India & Pakistan has been one of โthe great human convulsionsโ of history wherein approximately twelve million people moved from one country to another, travelling in kafilas, trains, cars & buses, while about two million refugees perished on the way due to riots, malnutrition, rape & widespread disease.
But the above paragraph is a very impersonal & emotionless retelling of the actual happenings or โHuman Dimensionsโ of the bloody partition, where stories of the extent of human horror & cruelty are only remembered & recollected in the seclusion of individual partition refugee homes on either side of the border. For often a story, like a coin, has more than one side, & not everything can be painted in black and white, there exist various undersides of untold pitch-black darkness, which most governments wish to forget by rewriting the past through censored history textbooks, a tactic used by Nazi Germany in World War 2. But history does not allow individuals to forget so easily, those painful memories live on in the minds of the survivors, & are periodically passed on generation after generation.
ย "Hindus and Muslims were sons of the same soil of India; they were brothers who therefore must strive to keep India free and united.", said Mahatma Gandhi when asked about the India-Pakistan partition which arose out of religious & political differences between the two previously united communities. The presence of the British as a common enemy during the Indian freedom struggle strengthened & unified people regardless of their religious beliefs, but after the goal of freedom had been achieved, we gained a renewed focus on our differences rather than other important issues such as extreme poverty, unemployment & illiteracy that plagued us in those times.ย
The geographical India-Pakistan partition, still divides us on the grounds of religion & ethnicity to this day. We see evidence of these long-lasting prejudices about those on the other side of the border, every time an India-Pakistan Cricket Match is played, or when soldiers are gunned down on the either side or when things are going wrong in ones home country. We all look for a scapegoat to place the blame on for all our troubles. A history of communal violence & enmity only adds fuel to the fire of hate, in every Indian & Pakistani heart when cleverly used by aggressors. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth becomes the norm, preventing marriages or even communication between two different religious groups, for fear of increasing religious tensions.
This religious fundamentalism could turn a community of peace-loving people into bloodthirsty savages, who by breaking the social contract, seek revenge for the evil done to another group a thousand miles away. (Another Community - RK Narayanan) The means of this vengeance being fire, knives & sticks for they would do the same there in the only language the other community would understand :- violence.ย Leaving behind horrifying memories for those who survived those difficult times, & unidentifiable bodies of the dead, for whom no trick or lie can ever erase the sufferings of the past.ย
Women & children like in most wars & riots were the worst affected during the partition. Mothers, wives, & children would often choose or be destined to face death by drowning or by the knife in place of rape & physical brutality. Thus, the gruesome history of the India-Pakistan partition is in a way immortal, because the survivors will always remember the horrific past, & pass on those stories to the future orally or in writing. And it is up to us to learn from our nation's past & prevent a repeat of the same in the future.
After a surreptitious glance behind her, she walked briskly across the cobblestone street towards the towering black gates leading up to the castle's drive.ย Before anyone could notice, the old security alarm was disabled & the gates groaned open at the unwelcome intrusion.ย Closing the gates behind her, she stood staring at the majestic castle before her, which was hers no longer.ย Darting up the winding drive, she stuck to the shadows of the overgrown trees, as she made her way towards the gaping windows on the ground floor.
Everything was still & drowned in darkness, a rare sight back in the days when her grandmother was still alive.ย Finding the latch on one of the windows still easy to pry open, she let herself into the musty hall that smelled of mold & lit herself a small candle.ย Great Lady Isabel smiled at her from the large oil painting on the wall. Though her golden gown was fading into grey, and peeling away like the paint on the castle walls, she looked almost alive.ย
Haunted by the sight of the castle in ruin, she ascends the narrow staircase with a sigh, her mind plagued by the lively memories from the past, that contrasted with the dismal present.ย Instead of lingering by the paintings of her ancestors, she makes her way to the castle library, carefully avoiding the dust-caked handrails which she used to slide down when she was young.ย Just past the third row of books, she spots what she was looking for, a book misplaced on purpose.ย Kneeling by the bookshelf, she pulls the red book out slowly, waiting for something to happen.ย Looking around her, she senses that something was amiss, were those voices she had just heard in the hall?ย Moving with the speed of a thief, she blows out the candle & hides behind the wooden door of the library, as hurried footsteps make their way to where she was hiding.ย
โNo Susan, Iโm telling you, Iโve checked this place a million times, there's no treasure to be found.ย Oh, she was an old witch who spent all her money on herself.โ
โPierre, I didnโt murder my mother-in-law for nothing, Iโm sure she had immense wealth, look at the castle she bought, only to die leaving a puzzling will with clues to some secret treasure.โ
โQuit this quest for non-existent wealth, Susan. Your husband already pampers you with the finest of clothes, gold & precious metals, not to mention the latest Ferrari models.โย
โRight! How long until heโs bored of me, or Iโm no longer beautiful enough to take his fancy? What then? I will have the hidden wealth, no matter what.โ
โSearch all you want, Susan, you wonโt find a thing. You should be glad you got away with the old ladyโs murder. But blaming the granddaughter, Zara was a bit overboard. Donโt you think?โ
ย โTimes were desperate, Pierre. Once Iโve found the clues sheโs stored somewhere in this castle, weโll run away. To France or maybe Russia, weโll never have to be apart again.โ
Unknown to the conspiring pair, the lady behind the wooden door strives to control the tears of anger that flow down her face. It all fell into place now, she had been wrongly convicted for killing the only woman she had ever loved, her beloved grandmother.
โVery well, Susan. Unless you want to spend the night at this godforsaken mansion, Iโll be leaving for the Dukeโs party which starts in an hour.โ
With that, the two left the library, quarrelling with each other over who the Dukeโs latest wife would be.
โXero, One, Two, Three, Four, Five.โ, she slowly counted in her mind, thankful that she had controlled herself from killing those two infidels with her bare hands, as they spoke of murder as though it were a walk in the park.ย
โYes, Iโve been here long enough to get a confessionโ, she whispered into her phone, while she ran her fingers through the old pages of the red book, her grandmotherโs diary.ย
โZara, youโll win this case. Weโve got enough evidence to put your step-mother & her aid in prison. Youโll be free.โ, replied the voice on the other end of the line.
Zara smiles as she recognizes the cursive handwriting on the yellow pages of the book. She walks back into the hall, her mind forming a plan. Her Grandmother was a clever woman, & the clues were hidden in plain sight.ย
But that's another story, for another time.ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย
โYou may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say you did not know.โ -ย William Wilberforce.ย
I quote William Wilberforce, a British leader influential in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain during the late 18th Century. Though we now live in the 21st Century, the problem of human trafficking persists, haunting the lives of millions of men, women, girls & boys in every corner of the world. Human trafficking simply put is an extreme violation of human rights involving the exploitation of vulnerable individuals in an underground industry with lucrative profits (approximately 150$ Billion annually: ILO), high demand (21 million victims), low reporting of crimes, & relatively low risks as compared to the monetary rewards.ย
Every industry, including the human trafficking industry, can be examined based on demand & supply for the commodity for sale, in this case: Living Breathing Human Beings. Modern-day slavery can be studied in two forms: Labour trafficking & commercial sex trafficking. Taking the case of India, the Global Slavery Index {GSI} in 2016 estimated that approximately 18.3 million Indians were employed in some form of forced labor, often ensnaring generation after generation, living in perpetual poverty. Bonded labor as a practice, though formally abolished in India, still exists in various parts of the country by different names; from debt bondage in the granite quarries of Rajasthan, the brick kiln labor traps of disaster-prone Odisha, to the deceptive Sumangali schemes of Tamil Nadu.ย
Profit hungry industries that demand cheap labor, hire illegal labor agents, who often dangle the bait of regular income & better living conditions before desperate unsuspecting victims from economically disadvantaged sections of society. The victims are then coerced into undertaking low-paid, heavy labor in dingy work environments until their fake labor contract is completed, or the high-interest loan is repaid. The false promises of well-paid employment, however, are never fulfilled, because none of the victims ever see the full sum of the promised money or repay their debts, thus creating a vicious cycle of extreme poverty in specific communities.ย ย ย
Another aspect that fuels labor trafficking, is the fact that a majority of daily wage workers are employed in the informal sector which lacks proper legal regulation or labor protection, thus allowing the silent oppression of millions of individuals who canโt take legal recourse because no contracts or labor laws exist in the informal economy. Women are paid much less than their male counterparts for the same work, and disguised unemployment is also a cause of worry in the informal sector. A stumbling block in the fight for human rights, is the marriage of young child brides in various countries, at an age when they should be studying in schools and enjoying their childhood. Child marriage poses a grave health & psychological threat to the affected individuals, crushing the dreams of dozens of innocent children, in South Asia {approximately 31 million girls}, sub-Saharan Africa { 14 million}, & Latin America {6.6 million - 2012 NCBI}ย
Like labor trafficking, the criminal sex trafficking industry can be analyzed on a similar note. Sex traffickers or sexual predators, often lure victims either on social media platforms (cyber-bullying) or in backward neighborhoods (kidnapping), by emotionally blackmailing individuals into giving up their bodies for a fixed price. Once trapped in the complex web of exploitation in modern-day brothels, clubs & the adult entertainment industry, victims of sex trafficking are often hidden in plain sight. Many are trapped behind the closed doors of escort services or fake massage parlors, as pointed out by human-trafficking survivor Cassandra Diamond, the founding Director of BridgeNorth, Canada. Facing immense physical violence and psychological torture on a daily basis, the men and women who finally do escape their difficult circumstances, rarely receive the necessary rehabilitation, aftercare or psychological therapy. They also mostly live in societies that unfairly discriminate & ostracize survivors because of their painful past.
How do we tackle the complicated issue of human trafficking? By identifying the four major stake-holders affected by the human trafficking industry, we can zero in on the steps required to crack down on this crime that reduces human beings to mere objects. Firstly, governments need to acknowledge that human trafficking is a critical issue, especially with the skewed sex ratios in countries worldwide {Qatar: 302 males per 100 females} which results in the sale of brides by human trafficking and forced marriages because of high female foeticide rates. Policymakers need to support the implementation of laws that increase penalties for traffickers while enhancing victim protection & strict enforcement of minimum wage and labor laws. We also need to focus on breaking the vicious cycle of poverty, economic instability,ย refugee crises & female foeticide rates that lead to human trafficking, by looking at these problems through the lens of humanity & not by mere unemotional statistics.
Secondly, companies need to understand that the short-term profits from cheap labor pale in comparison to the long-term benefits of upholding labor laws (employee loyalty) and fair trade practices (customer satisfaction), which could vanish if the shameful truth of labor exploitation reaches the public, tarnishing the company image forever.ย Thirdly, we need to have those awkward conversations with our sons & daughters, to reduce the demand for commercial sex trafficking & help individuals realize how their actions, online and offline, directly or directly enslave millions of adults & youth in lives of torture & rape. ย
Finally, by working alongside verified NGOs, volunteer groups & other dedicated organizations to create awareness on human trafficking, we can increase the reporting of human trafficking cases, thereby helping many more men and women escape the harmful clutches of this parasitic industry. Through proper rehabilitation, financial assistance and psychological therapy, the victims of human trafficking can be empowered to become the protagonists of their own stories, thereby giving individuals a second chance to live the life of their dreams. I end with a quote by Tony Kirwan, Destiny Rescue Founder & International President, โDare to enter the darkness to bring another into the light.โ
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