Let’s begin by acknowledging the absurdity of an Indian writer’s position today. The category by now includes editors who commission reporters and/or writers to write on specific subjects. Both sides periodically feel apologetic and somewhat sheepish about the vocation. But here we are. The President of the most powerful country in the world tells our Prime Minister that he is luckier than the former, in that he has a ‘good’ (read silent) media. He himself has been heard using expletives against his freer and non-compliant media when he is asked uncomfortable questions in pressers. Where do we look to find a benchmark for free speech? The united Europe where the writers and the media still enjoy freedom of speech is fast unravelling. Economies in Asia and Africa have yet to overcome the shock of the Strait of Hormuz being closed and opened abruptly. The question old legacy media in such an age are most frequently asked is, where is your earlier optimism about the world? Is it fair to sound perennially negative and doubtful about the ruling party and their core concept of India as a Hindu Rashtra? Questions about large scale defections from regional parties into the ruling party, the razing of hill ecology and water scarcity if and when they are raised, by party spokes, have the sly eagerness of a spoilt brat who is asking for public views knowing full well how and why the questionable deeds were done. Another question asked frequently is why does the liberal faction in the media not accept that multi culturalism has failed and the target henceforth for all patriots must be one nation, one flag, one language and one election. Those who were raised in the post 50s India are constantly heckled for quoting a specific historical experiment launched by Gandhi and fomented by Nehru, that blocked the birth of a Hindu Rashtra. As creative writers Amritlal Nagar, Rahi Masoom Raza, R.K. Narayan, U.R. Anantmurthy, Shankar or Kamala Das wrote frankly and even with some negative observations about growing up in a multicultural India. They also shared their impressions of lives across their region unapologetically. All had millions of readers waiting to read and discuss them in campuses, tea shops or offices. The readers knew the writers were not ’championing’ a lost cause, but presenting the immense potential of a pluralistic multi-faith India. History tells us racially homogenous societies have not necessarily been happier or more amiable and tolerant. Look what the Greeks did to Greeks, the Italians and the Germans did to their Jews, or back home around the first century, what our Brahmin Shunga kings did to Buddhists. A wistful time travel into a fabled past (mostly researched by the British and Germans) is a persistent political theme. So, when the right decries Mughals for being destroyers of the great Hindu culture, it accepts the glories of Western education and science by sending their own gen next abroad to acquire degrees and PhDs. The recent brouhaha about the 4,000-year-old statue of a naked woman from Mohenjo-daro, discovered in the early 20th century by British archaeologist Ernest Mackay. She was named ‘The Dancing Girl’ by another British scholar, Sir John Marshall. This doubtful nomenclature was accepted. The official conclusion was that it was the figure of an ancient woman following the world’s oldest profession. It was overlooked that the figurine was above all, a brilliant example of refined aesthetics reflecting that India has a long tradition of casting bronze statues. The girl may be from a band of Yoginis and free souls, like later female devotees Akka Mahadevi or Laldyad, said to have discarded clothes as unnecessary symbols of ego. As they roamed around naked they were free and totally at peace with themselves. And so they are still revered for their exquisite devotional verses and easy mobility. Yet, this precious work of art was declared unfit for school texts. The order has since been nullified but not before several educationists had supported banning the pictures or dressing it at least so young minds may not see a nude.Among the upper castes, reverse time travel is gaining popularity. They remain preoccupied with a history created by their ancestors along with laws set in stone on how each caste should behave. Their rights and privileges over the lower castes and women from all castes stretching a very long way back are constantly being justified. But for the upper caste women like myself, the expanse of that deemed glorious history is far narrower than for our men. And this is not to be put in the spotlight as a perfect victim or a wayward innocent actually benefitting from a Brahmin lineage. One knows how badly the upper castes treated their women in matters of equal property rights, the freedom to roam, educational freedoms, paid unequal wages for salaried jobs and expected never to equate or exceed their men’s stature. We can never be perfect as human beings but we can and must record moments of genuine pride, such as when women rose across party lines and demanded 33% reservation or justice for victims of rape.I owe this objectivity to my writer mother, one of the least ideologically biased people in my life. Everything that happened to her (and oh, plenty did), as a writer she refused to generalise it in her writings. She earned a meagre livelihood from writing in Hindi but never lost faith in the importance of free speech or our multicultural society. She told me towards the end of her life how all aberrations in human behaviour are historical in nature and arise out of the compulsions created by a person’s own basic nature – Swabhavgat Vivashata. A rickshaw puller to a powerful politician, wives of bureaucrats to tawaifs, from illiterate village women of hills to freely roaming bands of female Joginis came to visit her periodically and opened up to her. It was through them that she was able to tease out unexplored registers of sounds and words that Indian languages and dialects carry. She said once, just as an ustad teases out melodies from a band of seven notes, an objective writer or journalist like you can create complex narratives by just listening patiently to words. It is the shabd – word – that will lead you and your readers to the heart of the mystery life is and has been for centuries.Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.