WORRYING BEYOND CANADA

A friend asked me yesterday that, " Meera, you are a Canadian now and has been for over two decades, why should you worry about Punjab? You left India a while ago. You should only be involved with social, economic and political realities of Canada.There are too many issues that we need to focus on to make life better here."

This is not a new question that has been posed to me nor has this been the only prompt for me to think about it.

I spent first twenty years of my life in Punjab; Punjab is a place that I relate to, understand and can feel compassion for. While i have spent equal number of but adult years here in Canada, I think mine and anyone else who has similar connection with these two lands or any other country, will continue to put efforts to make it a better place to live for us all.

We as humans are taught early in the year to make things better around them than what they are today. Construct, creative, rewrite, improve, right from learning of write a, b, c to writing an articles, crawl to run, and desiring for ourselves to then learn to struggle for the society. Following this line of thought, how would one decide to shut their brain from thinking about their mother land? How would one stop caring for the people who were once part of your life? how do people do that? Does anyone even do that?

I think not.

While splitting our thoughts between the places where one has been and even the ones you have come to know about, through the media, a fine balance is attained for where your attentions will be distributed to.

Each individual manages his/her own energy/ resources to put life within the comfortable boundaries of their self defined happiness.

For me while I desired that people pay attention to Bill C51, C 24, Barbaric activities act, C377, accepting Syrian refugees in Canada, I also desire that people indulge in standing up for right to the freedom of speech, right to follow religion of choice, right to live the wonders of life through art, as long as no individual activity of a person harms or offends another person, all across the globe and especially in India.

If someone would ask:

would i speak up in favour to stop corruption and injustice in India? would I question public policies and social practices in Canada that have room for improvement? would I speak against the injustice again women all across the globe? would I speak for the human rights of respect, integrity, and fairness? then the answer to all these questions would be YES.

Yes I would.