We, a team of psychologists, activists and anthropologist were exploring different riot and riot like situations for a few years now. Yesterday was another round of fieldwork after a few months of Baduria-Basirhat violence. We began by talking to two brothers who lost their father and helped a person from other comnunity to survive, we met a handful of people who stopped their own community people from spreading the violence even further. We kept talking about the possible impact of the mistrust between the two. We kept thinking will this mistrust ever go away? Meanwhile, we met a child who witnessed mob attack on their house. When we tried to explore how did he remember? He started to sob... trauma remains deep inside. What the grownups could hide, present in a way they thought we needed to here, the child showed us the ugly face of it, least filtered. All of us fell short of words and that moment seemed like eaternity. How to face the child, how to face the world, we didn't know. Yes, we knew we have nothing more to know. For the day. His father gave words to the moment : 'I am 40+, my father is 75 we have never seen this before, see my child, only at the age of 8 he has seen it... i dont know what he thinks about them'.
Our team became silent once and perhaps for the day.
We needed a vent out. We needed recollect and become the whole and contend again. We knew river Ichhamati is nearby! How does a river help you everytime you need? Sometimes, river waits for you at the corner of your world to engulf your exhaustion. To unburden yourself, to seek refuge after you see things after the world asks you, what have you done to it!
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