This Powerful Book Excerpt Highlights Why India Needs Secular Religious Leaders<\/a><\/div>One night, when they thought I was asleep, Papa and Ma were in my room talking and Ma told him to keep meeting people, keep going for job interviews but he said-<\/p>
“there was no point as no one wanted him, they would like to get the same work done for half his salary”.<\/em><\/p>To which Ma said, “forget the salary, take anything they give you, you need to be out of this house working, you need to be with other people, forget about us, you need to feel safe and secure, I can’t be the only one dreaming around here”.<\/em> “I would love to take a vacation with all of us, I would love to walk on a beach, I would love to go abroad, to watch the snow fall, how is all this going to happen, how is any of this going to happen?”,<\/em><\/p>The way she said all of this, angry and defiant, set Papa off.<\/p>
He shouted back at her, “don’t tell me about your dreams<\/em>“, he struck his palm hard on the dresser table, making things fly away, “do you think I should work as a security guard? As Santa Claus? I should beg at the streetlight, scrub the toilet floor at the mall? That, too, is a job, isn’t it<\/em>“, he said, and he walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.<\/p>Ma followed him a few minutes later. She was crying. I heard all this, I saw all this with my eyes open just a chink.
I am very good at watching with my eyes closed, at making people believe I am sleeping, that I am not listening when I am, actually, wide awake, fully alert.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Like all children, I have a father. We shall meet him in just a little while. An odd character, my<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37844,"featured_media":444249,"parent":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21119],"tags":[168521,162659],"featured_image":"https:\/\/s3.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/08163239\/FB-Featured-Amrita-34-450x300.jpg","post_raw":0,"view_count":"110","prompt":"Excerpt: “If You Want To Live In This City, You Can Never Run Away From The Sea”","like":{"total":null},"campaigns":{"pre":"","before":"","after":"","middle":""},"featured_image_srcset":["https:\/\/s3.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/08163239\/FB-Featured-Amrita-34.jpg 1000w"," https:\/\/s3.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/08163239\/FB-Featured-Amrita-34-768x402.jpg 768w"],"block":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444174"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444264,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444174\/revisions\/444264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthkiawaaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}