When you cry out in support of a war, when you are hunting for ‘bytes’, when you are watching the news as entertainment, when you are preaching political analysis, when you suddenly become experts, when your disgusting nationalism takes over everything, when its just another day of sensational news for you, remember these regions are not just ‘border areas’, they are much more than that, they are much more than what you can comprehend, they are places where people centre community care and tenderness. Where they feed each other, their animals, their land and their forest. Where they walk along with the world , they work hard to make their place in the growing world, a world where they get marginalised over and over again; yet they do not leave behind their values, their way of being, their reality, what they have inherited from their ancestors.

People live here as well, they cut vegetables and cook, they play with their kids, children ride bicycles, people get betrayed, they open small businesses (or atleast try to), they study hard and work hard. They are not just “border people”.

When the current hue and cry is over do not forget that the people in these mountains experience fear and violence everyday yet every single day they choose life, and they insist on it. When medical care doesnt reach them, when they have to prove their identity every single day, when their livelihood is criminalised, this is when you think things have returned to “normal”…
remember their reality was completely turned over 7 decades back, how they are considered to be merely just “border people”.