The world is burning after one man's death. George Floyd. The killing of the 46-year-old has opened up deep wounds of racial discrimination – a fire that started from the US where the incident happened and has since spread like wildfire in the Western world. But for us Indians – discrimination – on the grounds of our colour or class or religion or gender has been rampant for generations – inflicted by both foreign and domestic players. The modern world we live in needs a symbol to stir it up, make them rise – unified against an age-old wrong.
Floyd, in death, has become that symbol. For us Indians, therefore, there is a Floyd in all of us. Be it a Bengali woman or a Kashmiri man, a Tibetan monk or a Sikh family – we have all, in different measure, been victims of discrimination, in various times of our lives. Floyd, therefore, isn't dead. He lives in me – reminding me that it is time that I start to breathe.
Concept: Kounteya Sinha
Illustration: Soumyadip Sinha
(Kounteya Sinha is a journalist, photographer, explorer and a revered story-teller. He can be contacted on Instagram @ksinha78.
Soumyadip Sinha is from the town of Chinsurah in Hooghly (West Bengal), and holds an MSc in Microbiology. He has spent five years at a food testing lab before giving it all up to become an artist. He does not have any formal training in art. He tweets @sinha_soumyadip, and can be contacted on Instagram @soumyadip.sinhart.
This is a personal blog and the views expressed are the authors’ own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)