Dheeraj Kalgutkar

Around 11am today when my first meeting (online) was over and I was out of my house, I came across a group of not less than twelve men standing at the dilapidated gate of an abandoned plot by Kali river. Each one of them knows there is a lockdown, a national curfew. Just days ago on one night, there was a vehicle roaming on street with a loudspeaker announcing ‘hereby people are informed not to gather in a crowd of more than five, to maintain a distance of at least six feet, not touch each other’ so that COVID-19 (a type of coronavirus) does not spread. I was curious about what they were discussing and what was really happening. What was so important that these people thought to gather like this against the advice risking not only their life but also of their families. I was just looking and one man from the group walked up to me. Before he walked over, one of them had asked me to bring a pen and paper — I had rather rudely ignored the request and just moved into my house then. T

The plant that we so diligently watered and cared for has grown into a big banyan; full of flowers and fruits. Own it now. 53 people have lost their lives in the Delhi riots. You have heard this already. But do you see the problem here? Riot? Was it really a riot? Is it a riot if the state machinery and police take sides; forget keeping silent while mobs went on a rampage but Delhi police took stones in their own hands and threw them at the other side, they directed and aided one side of the mob (as if there was another side anyway), they climbed and destroyed CCTV cameras . Yes, police did all this. It’s all on record. There are videos after videos that prove all this. How then can we call it a riot? It was a pogrom. As Rana Ayyub called, state-sponsored anti-Muslim pogrom. Let’s call it what it was. Now that we have settled on the calling business, let’s get on to our language. The 53 dead bodies, actually in some cases, there were no bodies, only a limb which police wou