Sandeep Bakshi

From The Telegraph Merz: Iran should not be protected by international law German chancellor positions himself as Trump's closest European ally in condemning Tehran.

Not judging Germany by its history, but its current failure. How on god’s green earth did they put this man in the top position?!

You’re being kind

Except that he looks gorgeous even today :-)

Me - close up of my face

Me in a blue tee, black jeans and brown shoes standing in front of a curtain.

Throwback Thursday.
I’m around 22-23 years old in these pics. I so wish I could get my curls back :-(
Image 2 - I was off to a gay get together. I remember my papa photographed me and I was told to be back by midnight: gayboy Cinderella.

Lala Har Dayal around 1914.

Lala Har Dayal (1914):

"I hold that a man should try to excel both in thought and action. My contribution to thought will be a synthetic presentment of the ideal of freedom and development. My contribution to action has been, is, and will be organization of the Indian revolutionary movement ...."

🇺🇸🇫🇷 France has granted US access rights to all French bases in the Middle East on a 'temporary basis', AFP reports.

(Ask yourself why there are French bases in SWANA)

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