Thousands Are Losing Their Jobs And Homes,

Excitement Always Leads To Tears.

Ammu Loved Her Children (of Course), But Their Wide-eyed Vulnerability And Their Willingness To Love People Who Didn't Really Love Them Exasperated Her And Sometimes Made Her Want To Hurt Them-- Just As An Education, A Precaution.

A Sparrow Lay Dead On The Backseat. She Had Found Her Way Through A Hole In The Windscreen, Tempted By Some Seat-sponge For Her Nest. She Never Found Her Way Out. No One Noticed Her Panicked Car-window Appeals. She Died On The Backseat, With Her Legs In The Air. Like A Joke.

It's All A Play. Hiroshima And Nagasaki Happen, There Are Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dead, And The Curtain Comes Down, And That's The End Of That. Then Korea Happens. Vietnam Happens, All That Happened In Latin America Happens. And Every Now And Then, This Curtain Comes Down And History Begins Anew. New Moralities And New Indignations Are Manufactured...in A Disappeared History.

In The Forests Of Central India And In Many, Many Rural Areas, A Huge Battle Is Being Waged. Millions Of People Are Being Driven Off Their Lands By Mining Companies, By Dams, By Infrastructure Companies, And A Huge Battle Is Being Waged. These Are Not People Who Have Been Co-opted Into Consumer Culture, Into The Western Notions Of Civilisation And Progress. They Are Fighting For Their Lands And Their Livelihoods, Refusing To Be Looted So That Someone Somewhere Far Away May "progress" At Their Cost.