First Prize in the State level extempore speech competition by All Kerela Balajanasakhyam

What is worse, the fear of being attacked or the guilt of being safe?  Numbness. It feels numb to live with a broken heart in a broken country that no longer cares. When just kilometres away, we are calculatedly butchered, classrooms of "liberatory education" still resound with lectures, tests, fests and talks with an eerie normalcy. Everybody laughs, jokes, eats, dances, travels and continues this monotonous cycle. From above the metro platforms in our area, the city behaves as if it's perfectly fine. And I don't know what is worse, the fear of being attacked or the guilt of being safe. The guilt of being able to at least temporarily laugh and eat food and erase the violence from my head, the guilt of being able to respond positively to frantic calls from my family who tells me not to go out anymore. The guilt of having a voice that is no longer able to speak. And I dont even know if this makes sense because I wanted to write this in polished poetic language. But I am overcome with the guilt of making our struggles a subject of appreciation. Our struggles aren't to be romanticised, the women of Shaheen Bagh aren't to be idolised for their "beautiful protest" and our movements aren't to be called second independence struggles. We are just existing and fighting for that right to exist. And that isn't a struggle to be appreciated. But just a reflection of how far we've been forced to come. I am writing this because I dont know what to do with this guilt of normalcy. If at all you can do something, please tear away this normalcy. Thank you.