This is no Rama Rajya!

It has been three months since the Indian government squashed the special status that Kashmir had since 1947.  "Life" goes on.

The government's road to political power was literally through the fabled land of a Hindu god, Rama.  In 1990, when the party was an outsider, it seized on the political opportunity to drive a hard divide between Hindus and Muslims and destroyed a 400-year old mosque.  Six years later, the party seized power, though it was short-lived.

After a brief but vocal stint in the opposition, the party now has a firm grasp on political power, and does everything possible--immoral and semi-legal ones too--to consolidate its power and to reduce the opposition to nothing.  And now, nearly three decades later, it has the highest court's verdict essentially legitimizing its illegal acts of 1990.

My adopted country's power-hungry reactionaries are no better.

Every day, I wake up feeling a tad more agitated and sadder.  The existential angst worsens by the day.

Even a detour from the interstate in order to have lunch at a park turns out to be a lesson about the times.

As we exited, we read a board that said that a state park was located four miles away.  It was a scenic drive with Mt. Rainier majestically soaring as a mirage in the distance.  After a few minutes of driving, with no signs of a state park, we decided to turn around.

At the very spot where we made the u-turn, well, there it was.  A confederate flag on a pole, flying right under the US flag.

A confederate flag all the way diagonally across from Mississippi and the Deep South!

Some day, maybe we will look past the color of the skin or the curl of the hair or the name of the god.  Some day.  Until then, sad and full of angst, we shall continue to resist the forces of darkness and evil.