by Anita Mendiratta | Apr 24, 2016
Why the tears?
Why the worldwide wave of shock, and the enduring mourning? Why the news cycle take-over? Why such unedited expressions and unfiltered images of sadness from celebrities and civilians alike? Why so many tears?
There’s something about the passing of a musician that stirs the spirit of the world. It’s like the passing of no other type of celebrity. Something that, for some reason, hits the hearts of millions, and unites strangers in memorial songs of celebration of a life once artistically lived, and now all too soon lost.
It is happening right now, at this moment. Across the world icons have been turned purple, music downloads are pouring through the internet, doves are crying.
Prince, just days after his last concert, just days after simple flu stopped his footsteps and sent him for medical care. Just 57 years of age.And David Bowie, and Maurice White, and Glenn Frey, and so, so, so many others. And this is in the first four months of 2016 alone. Some are defined as ‘legends‘, some less known.
We never really knew them, who they really were, the person behind the personality. Their personal lives were theirs. Granted, many were far from discreet. Still, while we may have seen through the news, read through the tabloids, what they were up to, the world never really knew them, not in way that warranted such profound outpourings of grief.
So why the tears? Why such a feeling of loss?
Because while their lives were mysteries, they, in their musically penetrating way, were an open-book part of ours. We might have been too young to understand the lyrics, but still, they spoke to us – to our emotions, our fears, often finding a voice when words were otherwise impossible to find. Lyrics linked to personal moments of life, of death. First love, first heartache, last moments, last memories, everlasting memories…
To hear music of now lost legends is to hear times of our past now gone. All it takes is a few notes, and a song can take us right back, stirring up memories of people, places, passions, pains. Musical links, deeply embedded in our lives, creating a personal soundtrack.
And so, the day the music dies, we cry. Not only for a musician’s life now lost, but a part of our lives remembered with tears – some sweet, some bitter, some long gone, some just an arms-length away – and what that musician brought to those times, without knowing it.
Today the tears are purple, tomorrow the colour will differ depending on whose shoulder the hand of fate next rests.
Whatever colour the tears, in our hearts they are a release of loving appreciation of what one person, one stranger, brought to our lives.
They are a tribute, a moment of pause to think of who they were, who we were back then, when we lived with their music filling our ever-shaping lives. And who we are today.
They are a quiet moment alone to say a prayer of thanks.
They are the physical representation of the sound that can be heard when doves cry.
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2016
by Anita Mendiratta | Mar 25, 2016
Numbing. The feeling was simply numbing. And it was becoming all too familiar.
First a high. A high that would carve a line in the history books of the 21st Century. And be a defining moment for millions looking on. Never did they, we, never did we all think the day would come.
As global media looked on, the sounds of pure, personal excitement in their voices were unmistakable. Real, raw. Almost relief. This was a moment they official voices of global networks would be forgiven for getting emotional. They never thought they would see the day. Air Force One’s wheels touched the runway of Havana’s José Martí International Airport airport with a profound feeling of exhale, the strength of the Boeing 747’s brakes feeling almost as though a metaphor of the strength of the brakes being put on a long, heated history of distrust, disrespect, deprivation, and for millions, imposed distance of peoples. AIR FORCE ONE LANDS HAVANA – MARCH 20, 2016
As President Obama and his family descended the staircase and walked onto Cuban soil, the first visit of a US President in almost 90 years, the promise of possibility was released. As the following hours of protocol, appearances and press conferences unfolded, history was being rewritten second by second. But no moment more powerful that when the hands of President Obama and President Castro reached out. With one simple handshake and a look into one another’s eyes, the words of the US President made clear that nothing was ever going to be the same again, saying with the sound of hope in his words,: “We have half a century of work to catch up on.”
It was, and will remain, a moment where just a for a moment, the world seemed to be looking forward as one. Hope comes alive in a handshake. Higher and higher eyes looked up, hearts soared.
And then it came – the low that would send the world’s hearts crashing down.
Half a world away from Havana, the people of Brussels would wake to look horror in the eye. First an airport bombing, and then within the hour, a metro station. 60 minutes, 30 lives taken, 230 lives escaping end with only injury, yet still shattered.
Within a period of 24 hrs the world saw, felt, shed tears, as the highs of possibility of peace and partnership, people coming together despite the history and the odds, turned into the depths of horror as terror pushed people into dark, desperate corners, grief of the day beyond comprehension.
With it, worldwide, acknowledgement of the exhausting continuation of what has become a merciless means of uniting the people of the world in terror – a terror that tries over and over to divide with its modus operandi of death and destruction. All shamefully and unjustly in the name of religion.
Now. just a matter of days on, as the experts and analysis dig deeper into what happened, why, and because of whom, the only certainty that the global community can around what lies ahead comes from one human truth: we need one another.
Across the globe, people are turning to keyboards to express their confusion, their compassion, their hurt & heartache, and their undying hope that this horror can stop. Theories around how to protect ourselves are emerging on all sides. So too are expressions of care and camaraderie for those suffering. One month it is Tunis, the next Lebanon and Paris, the next Istanbul, now Brussels….and soon, who knows. In so many ways it feels that nowhere is safe, no one is safe.
But putting up barriers, physical and psychological, will not keep us safe. Quite the contrary – this is where the danger breeds. Through judging others, damning others, and seeking to be apart from others, we lock ourselves into dangerous bubbles of ignorance, intolerance, inhumanity. We fuel the fire.
How will our world find a way to stop this tragic story of terror from writing future chapters? How can the roots of extremism be pulled from the ground, deprived of oxygen? How can the meaning of one of the world’s great religions be brought back to its true meaning as it is meant to be lived, celebrated, no longer linked to the selfish, barbaric motives of those using faith as a shield to hide behind, falsely fighting for its protection and preservation, pushing separation over diversity within unification?
There is no one solution, no one focus that will yield triumph over those resorting to such horrific means to make us stand apart from one another, in fear, inflamed by intolerance.
But there is one truth that cannot be overlooked: Ours is a world to be shared.
Time and again, history has shown us that separation only causes our decay as societies, and as economies. We need to keep working at understanding our differences, being able to be secure in our celebration of others, recognising that while externally so much may seem to differ, our hearts are the same. We love, we laugh, we dream….we cry, we grieve, we bleed.
While completely unconnected, the events taking place this week in Havana and Brussels do, in fact, share a vital connection. Events unfolding, shaking the course of history, changing the lives of millions. One – Cuba – showed how, at a time when so many forces are pushing us apart, rewriting history based on fear and fundamentalist thinking as witnessed in Brussels, there are those working to shape a future as one. This same spirit, this same determination to extinguish fear and find a peaceful way forward, is needed to face this latest challenge.
How can this happen? How can a movement of understanding occur, defusing fear in differences and setting alight appreciation of diversity of thinking and living, take off? It already has – through tourism. At its essence, tourism is about going to places unknown, exploring and understanding others’ lives, lifestyles, loves, getting to the heart of what makes them who they are, and in so many ways, discovering how similar that is to oneself when it comes to core beliefs and values. Here too, hope comes alive in a handshake.
Today two of the most previously ‘locked out’ nations across the globe – Cuba and Myanmar – now represent two of the most sought after destinations for not just travellers, but also investors in the travel & tourism sector. At the heart of opportunity for the Cuban people is the tourism industry. Not only will it bring much needed jobs, investment, earnings, essential skills, infrastructure and taxation to and for the people of Cuba, it will bring invaluable respect and appreciation for the Cuban identity. And it will bring a change to the nation that will allow it to blossom as a member of the global community.
Underlying the reengineering that needs to take place around Cuban policy, economy and industry is the very human component that will form the foundations for the future of the Cuban people. A foundation that will make the real difference when it comes to ensuring longterm change. For as was optimistically said by President Obama while standing alongside President Castro, just days ago in Havana,:
“I have faith in people. If you meet Cubans here, and Cubans meet Americans and they’re meeting and talking and interacting and doing business together, and going to school together, and learning from each other, then they’ll recognize that people are people, and in that context, I believe that change will occur.”
With a hope, a prayer, and a passport…
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2016
by Anita Mendiratta | Feb 19, 2016
This past week Africa lost one of its magnificent lionesses.
A force of nature, a woman of great strength, courage, grace and class, this young and vibrant lioness spent her last years fighting. Her fight, sadly, recently ended, the great lioness shutting her eyes far, far to early for a creature so ‘alive’. Shock immediately swept through the land. How could a life so full, free, fiery and fanciful suddenly be no more?
To people in shock across South Africa and the world, the passing of Sindiswa Nhlumayo has been a stark reminder of just how bold the assumption of tomorrow can be. And how such boldness can leave one speechless, literally and figuratively.
Yet the tendency to defer action for another time occurs so frequently, so naturally, and so understandably. Because the reality is this: each and every morning, everywhere, a new day welcomes a new list of things to be done, places to go, people to meet, priorities to be held central to our day’s events. Busyness eclipses being still, both in body and mind. The sense of ‘always there‘ makes it possible to push off the message of an inner voice until later. Surely there will always be more time.
This past week, as the lioness quietly left our lives, a whispered message followed her sultry steps. This message, channelled through euology written simply too early in life to honour a now-celebrated life passed on, still lingers since its first moments of composition: do it now.
If you think of someone, call them now.
If you love someone, tell them now.
If you feel someone needs help, reach out now.
If you are with those you love, hug them now.
If you have a dream, live it now!
Tomorrow, the next day, next year, is a bold assumption.
A last message shared in last moments.
One so gratefully received. x
In loving memory of a life that brought such love, laughter, and a whole lot of style! Rest well, dear lioness.
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2016
by Anita Mendiratta | Jan 30, 2016
It’s hard to believe he could have ever imagined such a response. And yet literally overnight, on the eve of Australia’s national day, the video link of Stan Grant’s address at Australia’s IQ2 Forum on Racism in Australia three months earlier set the internet, and debate, on fire.
STAN GRANT Address – IQ2 Debate, October 2015
He says it himself – he never could have imagined the response,:
- the over one million views of the address,
- the national, regional and international interest,
and,
- the strong responses of viewers, both supporting and scathing of his clearly and poignantly expressed point of view.
At the heart of his address was his people, people who seemingly needed him to turn the volume up on an issue felt to be muted. With remarkable passion of expression, somehow able to prevent cracking of voice and shedding of tears considering the emotional fire of his delivery, he told his story. Their story. Their sense of continued exclusion.
The issues expressed, the work he felt still needed to be done exposed, made clear the belief of the need for the nation to continue to look into the mirror, honestly, with eyes and heart open, and question, “Are we done enough for all?”
The question posed, grounded in the clear sense of injustices still felt, have ignited a debate that many Australians feel needs to be reopened, Stan’s address questioned by the Sydney Morning Herald if it was to be “Australia’s Martin Luther King moment’. Many, on the other hand, feel it needs to stay closed. It is up to the Australian people to decide if they wish to look into the mirror and face wherever reflection looks back at them.
Watching Stan’s stirring address and the subsequent news coverage generated by its response, the story appearing as headline worthy within a line-up of global news stories representative of the challenges of our times, it was impossible not to feel that the discussion around ‘are we doing enough for all’ needs to continue.
But it is not only in Australia. Nations across the world from down under to far up north need to, in these challenging times, be stopping to ask, often.
Every day, national composition and conscience is seeing changes. Elections across the globe calling in new eras of leadership, industrialisation, and especially immigration, is putting not just economics and identity into question, but humanity. Stopping to look at who we are as a people, wherever that may be on the world map, and asking ‘who are we, what do we stand for…and are we doing enough for all’, is a critical part of a nation’s ability to move forward.
Fareed Zakaria, on his powerful GPS programme on CNN, recently shared that at last count 244 million people across the globe, effectively 3% of the world’s population, live in country other than that in which they were born. Integration has become one of our generation’s greatest issues – not if, but how. And, always asking, ‘are we doing enough?’
Countries, both those long established and those reborn, should never lose sight of this question. Whether the UK or countries in Europe finding long lines of refugees desperately knocking on their doors, the US or Canada with new leaders ready to set these nations on new paths of opportunity while subtle signs of dissatisfaction around perceived exclusion continue to bubble (as seen with recent raising of voices of discontent around The Academy’s diversity-deprived list of nominees for the 2016 Oscar Awards), or newly (re)born countries such as South Africa now approaching its 22nd birthday in April 2016 as voices rise around the nation’s fading rainbow, across the globe nations old and new are needing to look into the mirror.
Transformation, true transformation, does not come through politicians, or policy. These are people and structures there to help facilitate what must come, ultimately, through compassion of citizenry. The genuine desire to ensure that all citizens feel a valued part of society, without judgement, without ranking, with eyes shut and hearts open, is everyone’s responsibility.
Importantly, because of the ever-changing nature of our world today, people and places evolving to reflect the social, economic, environmental and political times in which we live, the process of transformation is never one to which we can say “we’re done.”
Whether the Australian dream, the American dream, the German dream, the South African dream, the Indian dream, the dream of any person in any nation worldwide, all people in all countries hold in their hearts a dream – a desire for a life that offers they and their loved ones safety, security and possibility of a better tomorrow.
It is the bold voices such as that of Stan Grant that reminds us to keep the mirror close by, working with a spirit of ‘we‘ so that all people of a country can look into their eyes, in their country, and instinctively smile.
Idealistic? Perhaps. But is idealism not an essential part of the DNA of a dream?
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2016
by Anita Mendiratta | Dec 20, 2015
2015.
A year of immense joy, and intense ache, is counting down its last days, and hours….
In its last 60 days alone, global events have shown how inseparably interconnected our world has become. As but one example, in the first days of November, the eyes and hearts of the world were focused on Paris as terror eclipsed the city of light’s deep, passionate, persistent glow. One night, one tragic night, connected the world through tragedy, through tears, through hope for a way forward in unity and peace.
One month later, the world once again turns to Paris as the world comes together once more to craft a historic accord to protect our world from the man-made, manufacturing-based, undeniable and inescapable forces of Climate Change.
Just one city, as one small example, of how our world has been so deeply grounded in the reality of one. To move forward, to look to 2016 with a sense of separateness, a sentiment of ‘I” rather than “we“, would cost out world exactly what it needs to survive the challenges of the day: our coming together as one.
Differences will, and do, exist. Different ways of thinking, of living, of dreaming. But differences need not divide. Quite the contrary. It is these differences that can in fact allow us to learn, to appreciate, to respect, to connect, as one fabric that wraps around the globe. One fabric seeking to stay strong by allowing each thread to weave its way through the collective, part of the whole, keeping all strong. For to pull out one thread would to be to weaken the fabric, putting all at risk….
As the new year nears, may this be a time at which we look around and see, with deep appreciation, how dearly we need one another. Call it ‘Ubuntu‘. Call it ‘harmony‘. Call it ‘humanity‘. Whatever it is, it is what keeps our world turning, our lives learning, our spirits feeling.
It is what makes us one – one by one by one.
Happy, truly happy, blessed 2016.
Copyright: ANITA MENDIRATTA 2015
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