bailing you out of a $300 lunch scam (acts of service)

carrying you to the hospital after you collapse in his arms from hypothermia (physical touch)

coming to your dorm room after midnight to talk through the logistics of murder via poisonous mushrooms (quality time)

stealing narcotics from the dead kid's parents at the wake because you have a bad migraine (gift giving)

not only is it such a well-done way to foretell exactly what his obsessions are about, but like… such an interesting character detail that’s overlooked sometimes when he’s painted as just the ruthless, rigid scholar

Camilla stayed single all her life. She lives alone in her grandmother's old house in Virginia, and sits in the rocking chair at night and stares at the fireplace, smoking a Lucky Strike with old country songs murmuring on the radio, and tries to read Jane Eyre, but her thoughts always wander. To Henry. To Charles. To what once was.

Charles never did move out of the trailer he used to share with his girlfriend. Francis's yellowed, unopened letter is still lying somewhere deep in a drawer. He gets the odd job sometimes, washing cars or dishes or toilets. All the little money he has goes to liquor. What more does he need, anyway? His only aim in life is to forget. The owner of his usual place lets him stay past closing time sometimes, and play the out of tune piano, and slurred notes of Chopin fill the empty place, and he imagines they're all still there, in the library, where they can hear him play. But when he's finished, the lazy applause of his friends and the bright smile of his sister fail to appear.

The older Francis gets, the younger the men he goes home with. The doorman sees a new small nineteen year old blond leaving the building every morning, some looking shameful, others almost proud. He meticulously keeps up his socialite facade in public, but as soon as he's home alone, the mask is dropped, the cigarette is lit, and he sits in the windowsill chainsmoking. Looking at the sky. Wondering where Henry is. Wondering what could have been. Wondering why he's still here. His bright red hair slowly but surely fades to gray.

We Indians carry the weight of a painful history - of oppression, violence, and a long, hard-fought struggle for freedom. We have not forgotten the brutalities of British colonial rule. We remember how our people, innocent men, women, and children were massacred without mercy. We remember Jallianwala Bagh, where hundreds were gunned down simply for daring to raise their voice. In the recent trailer of Kesari 2 you can see those visuals and it is heartwrenching.

We also remember the stolen resources, the famines created by greed, and attempts to break our spirit as a nation.

This is why, when I see the suffering of the people in Gaza, my heart aches in a way many may not understand. And I think every Indian should feel that. Because we, too, were once stripped of our land, our dignity, our right to live freely. We, too, were once treated as if our lives didn’t matter.

Palestinians today are being bombed in their homes, forced to flee their land, and made to live every day under fear, much like how Indians once did under colonial rule of the Britishers. This is not just a political issue. This is about humanity. This is about the pain of a mother who can’t protect her child. About a father digging through rubble with bare hands to find his child's body. This is about children growing up and surrounded by death instead of dreams. It is extremely painful to watch in front of our eyes.

How can we not feel their pain, when it mirrors our own past? How can we simply ignore it and live our happy little lives?

We have to live our life, yes but we must not stay silent. Our history demands better of us. As people who fought oppression and how we earned our freedom with the blood and sacrifice of millions, we owe it to the world, to stand with the oppressed, to speak for the voiceless, and to remember that justice is not justice unless it is for all.

Let us not forget where we came from. And let us never turn our backs on those who are still walking through the fire we once emerged from.