By Advaita Kala
As the mountaineer, John Muir said, “The mountains are calling, I must go”. I was at the Bhoo Qanoon Maharally because of the mountains. It is something that would have made my grandmother happy, who in our isolated city living would tell me stories and teach me songs about Sumari, a little mountain village in Pauri Garhwal where we came from. At the time, the lure of big city life and the world beckoned. I travelled and lived around the world, in the US, UAE and Burma. My village Sumari, almost a mythical place, so far removed from who I was, or was it?
When my grandmother passed, I returned to Sumari, walking the steps she had as a young bride, sat in the open-air amphitheatre with the Devi Temple, where our 100 year old Ram Leela is held. I prayed at the Shiva Temple, where my great grandmother stood on one leg for days, with the hope of bearing a child – my grandfather. Would I be without that temple?
I played with little children who looked startlingly like me. This was home I thought to myself, and it was comforting. Years passed and Covid struck. By instinct I thought of my village and the countless other Himalayan villages that needed help, so I sent Covid care packages with oxymeters, sanitisers, masks, etc. The village Pradhan informed me the packages had been received after days of uncertain journey and then did something that warmed my heart. The villagers split the packages up and sent them forward to other villages in need. I had not asked them to do so, this they did on their own. The generosity moved me and compelled me to say with pride, this is where I come from. What else is identity?
So, when I joined the Bhoo Qanoon Rally on a wintry afternoon in Dehradun, I went as an Uttarakhandi, deracinated as so many of us are and yet pulled by an emotion I could not explain. I have engaged in activism in faraway Kerala, risked my safety, drawn to it by compelling human compassion but done little for my own state. I went to the rally to atone and instead what I discovered was a fraternity that accepted me like no other. The Maharally had people from all parts of the state and all walks of life. There were the old and young, men, women and children and even a sprightly group of transgenders from Uttarkashi. We all stood together and shouted slogans and demanded rights for those who came before us and those who will follow. We pleaded for the security and sanctity of the people who cared for and nurtured Devbhoomi and the Char Dhams at great personal hardship and cost. We stood for those who insisted we were a people with a language and a culture, but not a voice, to make that voice heard they laid down their lives.
In Dehradun that afternoon, I raised my voice with so many others like me. Hoping that our collective voice rose in the skies and ricocheted against the mountains, echoing all over our beautiful state and beyond, hoping that we were finally heard, high above the cacophony just like the mountains.
(Native of Uttarakhand, Advaita Kala is an award-winning screenwriter and activist)
