Sandeep Bakshi

Udham Singh's statue at the entrance.

Me in front of Udham Singh's statue.

Lala Hardayal Singh who founded the revolutionary Ghadar Party against empire. Udham Singh, the anticolonial warrior, a witness to the massacre, went to London and murdered Michael O'Dwyer, Lt Gov of the Punjab, who had given the orders for the massacre. FAFO! The spirit lives on. /fin

One wall with the bullet marks.

India's Voice Newspaper of the Ghadar Party -- published from San Francisco.

Posters depicting men of the Ghadar Party.

are visible (image 1) in their original form on the walls. The two rooms w/ videos & history of the period are in fact well curated. The history of the Ghadar Party, esp the connect with San Francisco is well notified (image 2). One reason I adore going to UC Berkeley is its close connect to 3/

The martyrs' pillar and pond.

Jallianwala Bagh. The memorial pillar (image) is certainly something I don't quite consider worthy of the uses of memory. It serves the instinct of beautification with the outcome of ensh****fication where folks make reels -- in fact, there were several notices not to make 'em.
The bullet marks 2/

First room of the memorial -- titled Punjab's resistance to British rule.

The entrance to the memorial depicting men in bronze statues going towards what we can consider liberation

Last post on Amritsar. Yesterday we visited the site of the Jallianwala Bagh colonial massacre (1919), one of the well documented mass murders of the British Empire. It was my 2nd visit. I'm not against memorialisation of historical sites per se, but had read critiques ofthe museum-ification of 1/

It’s a low by even Daily Mail standards

Word!

With my sibling an parents. Biofamily sitting in a café. Our last afternoon here in Amritsar

Last afternoon in Amritsar. Family portrait.

No, queer-rights deflection is a tried and tired method to advance the march of illegal wars. Stop deploying us queers as smokescreens for waging war in Iran.
Find something new in your morally depraved fabric.
If rights-based weaponisation is any measure, think Epste**. Where's the war for it?

Rather International Apartheid’s law : only the global south nation must abide by these rules are punished if they don’t but white nation can bypass them

Oh I didn’t know that. Thank you for pointing me to it.

They are also ignorant, but just as frightening. I made a thread about them more than a year ago:

These are powerful people. They are horrid and scary

G’ness! Kept mum but, in the heyday of twitter, I found myself on a list for what was being read as deliquescence of French academia, since it had purportedly become saturated with race/decolonial work from US.
I’m an export to France; felt terribly lonely. Know firsthand the harm such books cause.

International law: whiteness law.
Discuss.
You have three hours.

OF COURSE Iran is fighting back!

OF COURSE the conflict is spreading!

What did they think would happen?

The US is being run by half-wits…

Israel invaded Lebanon again

I loved every bit of the pre-morn experience. It opens at 3.30am and the scripture arrives at 4.45. Folks are present on the site so early. You have to witness it at least once.

The migrant workers/slaves who built the city is geopolitics. The dirty money, the sanctions evasion, the uneasy relationships with neighbours, the war UAE funds in Sudan... Anyone living there is exposed to geopolitics. Just now they can't pretend otherwise.

Who’s Deciding Where the Bombs Drop in Iran? Maybe Not Even Humans. Behind last week’s scrum between the Trump administration and Anthropic lies a deeper question of how warfare is conducted—and whether accountability even exists anymore.

Truly dystopic.

"we are witnessing the fullest expression of the most inhumane weapons of the century: Autonomous bombs and missiles. Their “autonomy” refers to fact that humans need not be in the loop in any meaningful way when deciding where to target or whether to launch such weapons."

Only - shop window

Swiss beauty , shop atop H & M

Sign - Jack & Jones

La Martine, Buenos Aires

Small mercies in our brutally violent world. Personal victory similar to my Nani connecting mum’s birth after miscarriage to a victory over her body - ‘Vijay’ mum’s name.
Mine being able to read Punjabi, my
mum & Nani’s language.
1. Only 2. Swiss Beauty 3. Jack &Jones 4. La Martina, Buenos Aires.

The Golden Temple

Sister and I in front of the Golden Temple

Another view of the Golden Temple

One more view of the temple

I have been dreaming of the Golden Temple for the last two decades. One of my fave places. Here today & tomos with biofam. Long queues; huge crowds.
Booked the 3.30 am shuttle to see the Guru Granth Sahib (holy book of the Sikhs) being brought to the temple. Will have to go to bed early.

This
"That doesn't mean I want my people bombed, maimed, killed, their homes in ruins.
If your vision of liberation comes only through the destruction of innocent lives, then it's not freedom you're after."

Sahar Delijani, Iranian author

Beauties

Lovely - my faves

Rust-hued bougainvillea bush

White and red bougainvillea bushes

Street with bougainvilleas

Bougainvillea and bench

Anyhoo, to all warmongers:

Less war, more bougainvilleas…
Do my usual rounds & make friends along the way, talking of flowers we love.

PS: Parents no longer wish to entertain folks I call friends & bring over for coffee since I don’t even know their names.
Sole common point: flowers in the ‘hood.

The geopolitical west fights to shreds anyone toppling statues of racists and enslavers, but celebrates murder (and toppling of a regime considered ‘evil’). If all evil regimes need dismantling, when do we begin with the current US dispensation?

(Nah,nah, let’s appease it).

Same for queer Moroccan liberals 👇🏽

Euphoric queer Indian liberals please lend me your ears.
Black women organisers & academics have taught us:
Black & Brown faces in high places won't save us, to paraphrase Ruha Benjamin.
Problematic queer savarna women in upper House of Parliament won't save us.

Justice supersedes representation.

Civilian areas of Tehran were hit again overnight by violent U.S.-Israeli explosions.

Literally so many of the problems in the Middle East stem from over a century of European and US intervention, including the setting the stage for the current Iranian regime, and so many are tied to their decision to seize land to create Israel and the apartheid system it subsequently created.