Abhilasha Singh

“The Occupation has created generations of us that have to adore an unknown beloved: distant, difficult, surrounded by guards, by walls, by nuclear missiles, by sheer terror.”

Excerpt From: Mourid Barghouti. “I Saw Ramallah”.”
― Mourid Barghouti

“Occupation prevents you from managing your affairs in your own way. It interferes in every aspect of life and of death; it interferes with longing and anger and desire and walking in the street. It interferes with going anywhere and coming back, with going to market, the emergency hospital, the beach, the bedroom, or a distant capital.
Everybody I spoke with here told me about their new favorite pastime of staying out late, an exaggerated staying-up in the houses of relatives and friends. But things here are temporary. The sense of security is temporary.”

Excerpt From: Mourid Barghouti. “I Saw Ramallah”.”
― Mourid Barghouti

“Mathematics becomes very odd when you apply it to people. One plus one can add up to so many different sums”
― Michael Frayn, Copenhagen

“Love him,’ said Jacques, with vehemence, ‘love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, helas! in the dark. And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty— they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty, you can give each other something which will make both of you better—forever—if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.’ He paused, watching me, and then looked down to his cognac. ‘You play it safe long enough,’ he said, in a different tone, ‘and you’ll end up trapped in your own dirty body, forever and forever and forever—like me.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room