’TIS NOT THE SAME
Politics is something I truly do not understand, so don’t ask me how far is far right or whether my socialist leanings reflect the time when I am not hibernating. I’d like to believe politics is a personal choice and I’m nobody to judge. Whatever floats your boat.
While on the subject, let me clarify that I also do not understand assimilation of cultures in the name of the larger good. Homogeneity, I believe, is as destructive as conflict. Its corrosive nature turns everything that it comes into contact with into one vanilla pool – insipid. Just like conflict, it destroys unique, intriguing, fascinating subtext.
So what I do understand, or I believe I do, is selfhood. It is not a defined manifesto or a hardline mandate but a testimony of who we are. Simple. We are individuals, each a sum total of our emotions, history, values and beliefs. And that is the fact we all need to embrace, not just about ourselves but about those around us and everybody out there.
That, I believe, is also the first step towards celebrating diversity – we are different, no one’s better or worse, just different, each a link in the chain of happy coexistence, each accepting of each other’s merits, each trusting the other despite the differences.
It is this happy coexistence and trust that is the hero of our story ‘More than just jewellery’ on page 26. While the article highlights exquisite gold jewellery that is almost 90 years old and its refined craftsmanship, it is the story of its people and its purpose that leaves me stupefied.
For a bride to entrust her jewellery to a
Homogeneity, I believe, is as destructive as conflict. It turns everything that it comes into contact with into one vanilla pool – insipid
stranger for no personal gain, time and again, does not just speak of her massively generous heart but of her trust in the goodness of others. And then for her family to be the torchbearers of that generosity and carry on the tradition, is equally awe-inspiring.
Sceptics among us would wonder at the family’s naivety, but to me this tradition is not just an act of kindness but a validation that while we all might be the different colours of a rainbow, we come together to form the pure white light called faith in humanity.