লুকোচুরি

Rain-Tree Sketch II: “In memoriam Olivier Messiaen”, for piano (1992)            

this year i cannot celebrate it. i am too angry. i am too heartbroken.

the kumaon region has honoured this day for generations, and so have parts of himachal pradesh. this festival was a relationship between the people and their mountains. and our government has taken that relationship and turned it into a performance and a photo op, while the real forests burn and fall around us.

the delhi-dehradun expressway was built to reduce travel time between the two cities—something the citizens never asked for, only the tourists did. this pathetic expressway instead opened the floodgates to the overtourism that has already been severely prominent in uttarakhand for the past few years. thousands of trees have been cut, wildlife has been pushed out of the only homes it has ever known, all of it sacrificed in the name of "development", as if that one word can launder what has been done here.

and now this. locals have already reported fresh tree felling inside the iconic 'saat mod' (7 bends) of the dehradun reserve forest. the government plans to completely straighten this legendary, scenic ecosystem just to facilitate a bit faster tourist movement. i genuinely don't have words for how much this hurts, and i don't have words for how much this enrages me.

so today, on the 15th of july, we are not celebrating harela. we stand and mourn it. today we observe black harela.

black harela is a citizen-led protest and mourning movement rising out of dehradun, born directly out of this contradiction, the state government pushing massive tree felling projects, like the widening of the bhaniyawala-rishikesh highway, while running state-sponsored tree planting pr campaigns on the very same festival meant to honour these forests.

today, instead of the usual festivities, we wear black, we gather peacefully, we mourn openly and publicly for the thousands of mature trees that have been cut down, trees that cannot be replaced by a sapling planted for a press photo. we are angry about the destruction of ecological zones and elephant corridors across the shivalik forests. we refuse to accept that a few saplings can undo the loss of old growth trees that took decades, and in this case, centuries, to grow.

harela was never meant to be a hashtag for the government to hide behind. it has always been a promise from the people to the mountains that we call home. we are done watching that promise get broken just so that some of the most beautiful cities of uttarakhand can be developed enough to be "virtually a part of NCR".

our times have given us more than enough reason to protest, for our right to breathe, our right to live with dignity, our right to protect the environment, the ecosystems, the forests and the mountains upon which our survival depends.

if you are not angry, you are not paying attention.

i ask my friends, wherever you may be, to join this movement and support #blackharela.

Hey all! Mai's family needs urgent help keeping her mother alive after her surgery. She's in the ICU receiving life-saving care but this care comes at a cost. The medical system in Ghazzah has collapsed and the cost of care has skyrocketed to prices that cannot normally be afforded in the strip without outside help. Please if you can, send help to Mai's family.

Namaygoosisagagun First Nation/Collins has burned to the ground. The entire community is nothing but ashes after being quickly consumed by wildfires. They did not have any support from emergency services, and no one offered aid. The community saved themselves by escaping into boats because no one came.

Mishkeegogamang and Cat Lake have lost power. Families are ending up in shelters with nothing. Armstrong, Lac La Croix, Whitesand, Gull Bay, Lac des Mille Lacs are currently in the fires path and all members are being evacuated.

All this loss, all this devastation, and it was entirely preventable.

After steadily underfunding wildland firefighting and purposefully excluding Indigenous wildland firefighters and Indigenous wildfire organizations from wildfire operations, firefighter training, decisionmaking, and resource exchanges, in 2025, Doug Ford slashed the forest firefighting budget.

It's hard to ignore his decision to cut funding and leave us out of adequate fire training (even though we've lived with forest fires for thousands of years—far longer than settlers have been in Canada—and made sure fires like the ones we're all seeing today were prevented through kinisitotēn) when, despite making up less than 5% of the population, we account for 42% percent of all wildfire evacuations in Canada.

And when we are successfully evacuated, we face discrimination and racism—like Kashechewan—because it's always been easier to blame us than it is to blame the true culprit: denialism, corportate greed, and colonization.

The people of Collins and every other impacted community deserve better.

Right now, the AFN is currently accepting donations to help Collins First Nation. If you're able to, please consider donating.

ONWA (Ontario Native Women's Association) is another great place to donate to. They have outreach vans going to motels and inns and offering food, water, resources, and cultural support to those impacted by the wildfires.

Other places to consider donating to are Mikinakoos Emergency Fund, Red Cross, True North Aid, Indigenous Climate Action. You can also send donations directly to Whitesand First Nation via e-transfer ([email protected]) and they request that you add your full name in the e-transfer comment section to receive a tax receipt.

*Before sending money, verify that the appeal appears on an official First Nation, Tribal Council or registered charity channel.

If you can't offer financial support, please consider donating items of need. Moontime Connections is currently accepting drop-off donations. If you live in the Thunder Bay area, Namaygoosisagagun Health Office is also taking in donations! They can also bemailed to Superior Inn Hotel & Conference Centre at 555 West Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, ON, P7E 5P8.

items needed are: food, diapers, medical masks, men’s and women’s joggers (all sizes), children’s clothing (newborn to size 14), children’s shoes, summer clothing, men’s clothing, toiletries (lotion, Vaseline, toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, soap, deodorant, etc.), strollers, adult depends-all sizes, dog & cat food