In praise of courage

Born in a small village in Rajasthan – so small that the world doesn’t know its name.

Forced into a marriage at a young age to an older woman – a common practice in rural desert. Son at the age of 21.

Lying on a Sufi shrine right next to his house, where he learnt to smoke chilam, he often thought his life was over.

Then : Jaipur. To study literature, on a scholarship. Sometimes, no money even for food. Not even for cheap bus rides.

That’s where he met my mother. That’s where he wrote some of his best poetry.

Someday I will go to that small little village where he grew up, where most of his family still lives – where his new life was never accepted – where he first learnt that to make marijuana more effective, one should have some hot tea

I will go to that little village, and maybe beyond the barrier of time and space, I will find that little boy who would in the future give me a heart that doesn’t tremble.

The little boy won’t understand anything when the strange, mad girl from the city would ask him:

Baba, show me where you first found courage.