Nikita

“Each person held aloft a single lit candle—the city’s traditional way to express its appreciation for that year’s peace prize winner. It was a magical sight, as if a pool of stars had descended from the sky; and as Michelle and I leaned out to wave, the night air brisk on our cheeks, the crowd cheering wildly, I couldn’t help but think about the daily fighting that continued to consume Iraq and Afghanistan and all the cruelty and suffering and injustice that my administration had barely even begun to deal with. The idea that I, or any one person, could bring order to such chaos seemed laughable; on some level, the crowds below were cheering an illusion. And yet, in the flickering of those candles, I saw something else. I saw an expression of the spirit of millions of people around the world: the U.S. soldier manning a post in Kandahar, the mother in Iran teaching her daughter to read, the Russian pro-democracy activist mustering his courage for an upcoming demonstration—all those who refused to give up on the idea that life could be better, and that whatever the risks and hardships, they had a role to play.

Whatever you do won’t be enough, I heard their voices say.

Try anyway.”
― Barack Obama, A Promised Land

“Why are people okay with not walking?
Does Father not miss his daily walks to the shrine and his shop?
What about Mother and her long walk to her parents' home?
Does Bobeh not get bored now that she can't kill time watching people walk on the streets?
What happened to my sister who lived her life outside; going to college with her friends, walking long distances to make umpteen visits to her tailor?
I miss playing hopscotch on the streets.
I miss walking in the courtyards and the run to buy kyencza.
Why can't I play hide-and-seek in with Mogli's daughter in our courtyard again?
Who walks in the by-lanes, on the bridges, outside the school?
Who can walk to the bakeries?
These are not built for walking.”
― Farah Bashir, Rumours of Spring: A Girlhood in Kashmir

“and I look on my brain as a mass of hydraulically compacted thoughts, a bale of ideas, and my head as a smooth, shiny Aladdin’s lamp. How much more beautiful it must have been in the days when the only place a thought could make its mark was the human brain and anybody wanting to squelch ideas had to compact human heads, but even that wouldn’t have helped, because real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself.”
― Bohumil Hrabal, Too Loud a Solitude

“...the constant shifting of power had done its damage. I didn't know then, but it was the beginning of an apathy for my own self that would last for a long time. Our lives were controlled from elsewhere and the dreams that we dreamt were always at the mercy of someone else, someone occupying us, ruling us.”
― Farah Bashir, Rumours of Spring: A Girlhood in Kashmir