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the-whispers-of-death · 8 months

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Just thinking about my COD OC "Stone" and how after several months with the 141, he'd tell them his real name: Vikram. This one's long.

Price is the first and the way Stone tells him to call him by his real name is the most casual of them all. Stone had been in Price's office, handing him a stack of medical reports on the bi-monthly check-up the 141 has to do so the SAS knows they're still fit for duty. Price, as always, says, "Thank you, Stone."

And Stone just replies with, "Vikram."

At first, Price is taken aback, because while he knows Stone's real name (he has access to Stone's military file, after all), he wasn't expecting to be able to use his real name. But outwardly, he's calm and cool, repeating the sentence but with Vikram instead of Stone. Afterwards, when Stone has left the office, Price spends an hour just saying "Vikram" over and over again, memorizing the way Stone had pronounced it so he can correctly pronounce it next time.

Soap is sitting in the infirmary after one of his demolitions projects for the SAS had injured him, the smell of disinfectant covering up the small traces of blood that permeates the air in the infirmary. He's wincing at how not-gentle Stone is when wrapping his slightly burned arm, even though that has never changed in the months Stone has spent with the 141.

"Aye, Stone, be gentle, will ye? I'm a sensitive lad," Soap jokes, trying to get the soft huff of amusement Ghost always manages to get from Stone. At the very least, he hopes he gets Stone to be gentler.

Stone does not wrap the bandage gentler, but his usual cold voice is softer when he says, "Vikram. My name is Vikram." He sounds so tender, evidence that Soap had burrowed his way into Stone's cold heart.

And Soap has the brightest grin on his face as he repeats Stone's name. And then he annoys Stone by saying it over and over again, getting a playful nip from Stone in retaliation because Stone really has started using biting as a way to show his affection.

The way Stone tells Gaz his real name is when they're surrounded by others. Gaz and him are in the supply depot, Stone just having helped Gaz get something from the higher shelves.

"Thanks, Stone. I really appreciate you helping me out every time," Gaz says, too focused on what else he might need from the supply depot to realize just how intensely Stone is looking at him.

Stone's voice is a whisper so no one else who's around can hear him as he murmurs, "Vikram."

And Gaz's brown eyes flitter up to look into Stone's own brown eyes, a smile making its way onto his face. "Vikram," he repeats, his voice also a whisper. "Beautiful name, mate. Suits you."

In pure Stone and Ghost fashion, the way Ghost hears Stone's real name for the first time is when they're both awake in the middle of the night. They both struggle with flashbacks, so they often find themselves in one of their barracks, one roaming the hallway of the barracks to get to the other. And they often cuddle each other, needing the closeness to go back to sleep.

So Ghost and Stone are laying side by side in Ghost's bed and Ghost is spooning Stone, Stone's larger body in his arms. "You're safe here, mate," Ghost whispers in the dark, his gruff voice tender. "I got you, Stone."

"Vikram," Stone says softly, too vulnerable tonight to hear his callsign from Ghost. And he doesn't miss the way Ghost's hold on him tightens, his touch still tender though.

"Vikram...." Ghost tests the name out on his tongue, sighing wistfully of how it rolls off his tongue so easily. He buries his head into the crook of Stone's neck. "Call me Simon then, aye?"

So Stone does, both of them saying each other's real names so softly, so tenderly. Side by side, just two broken soldiers.

Reblogs are welcomed & appreciated!

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andmaybegayer · 5 months

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/29/india-assassination-raw-sikhs-modi/

cool cool cool

(full text below the cut)

An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India

Greg Miller, Gerry Shih, Ellen Nakashima

The White House went to extraordinary lengths last year to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a state visit meant to bolster ties with an ascendant power and potential partner against China.

Tables on the South Lawn were decorated with lotus blooms, the symbol of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. A chef was flown in from California to preside over a vegetarian menu. President Biden extolled the shared values of a relationship “built on mutual trust, candor and respect.”

But even as the Indian leader was basking in U.S. adulation on June 22, an officer in India’s intelligence service was relaying final instructions to a hired hit team to kill one of Modi’s most vocal critics in the United States.

The assassination is a “priority now,” wrote Vikram Yadav, an officer in India’s spy agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, or RAW, according to current and former U.S. and Indian security officials.

Yadav forwarded details about the target, Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, including his New York address, according to the officials and a U.S. indictment. As soon as the would-be assassins could confirm that Pannun, a U.S. citizen, was home, “it will be a go ahead from us.”

Yadav’s identity and affiliation, which have not previously been reported, provide the most explicit evidence to date that the assassination plan — ultimately thwarted by U.S. authorities — was directed from within the Indian spy service. Higher-ranking RAW officials have also been implicated, according to current and former Western security officials, as part of a sprawling investigation by the CIA, FBI and other agencies that has mapped potential links to Modi’s inner circle.

In reports that have been closely held within the American government, U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that the operation targeting Pannun was approved by the RAW chief at the time, Samant Goel. That finding is consistent with accounts provided to The Washington Post by former senior Indian security officials who had knowledge of the operation and said Goel was under extreme pressure to eliminate the alleged threat of Sikh extremists overseas. U.S. spy agencies have more tentatively assessed that Modi’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, was probably aware of RAW’s plans to kill Sikh activists, but officials emphasized that no smoking gun proof has emerged.

Neither Doval nor Goel responded to calls and text messages seeking comment.

This examination of Indian assassination plots in North America, and RAW’s increasingly aggressive global posture, is based on interviews with more than three dozen current and former senior officials in the United States, India, Canada, Britain, Germany and Australia. Citing security concerns and the sensitivity of the subject, most spoke on the condition of anonymity.

That India would pursue lethal operations in North America has stunned Western security officials. In some ways, however, it reflects a profound shift in geopolitics. After years of being treated as a second-tier player, India sees itself as a rising force in a new era of global competition, one that even the United States cannot afford to alienate.

Asked why India would risk attempting an assassination on U.S. soil, a Western security official said: “Because they knew they could get away with it.”

The foiled assassination was part of an escalating campaign of aggression by RAW against the Indian diaspora in Asia, Europe and North America, officials said. The plot in the United States coincided with the June 18 shooting death of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., near Vancouver — an operation also linked to Yadav, according to Western officials. Both plots took place amid a wave of violence in Pakistan, where at least 11 Sikh or Kashmiri separatists living in exile and labeled terrorists by the Modi government have been killed over the past two years.

The Indian intelligence service has ramped up its surveillance and harassment of Sikhs and other groups overseas perceived as disloyal to the Modi government, officials said. RAW officers and agents have faced arrest, expulsion and reprimand in countries including Australia, Germany and Britain, according to officials who provided details to The Post that have not previously been made public.

The revelations have added to Western concerns about Modi, whose tenure has been marked by economic growth and rising global stature for India, but also deepening authoritarianism. A recent report by Freedom House, a human rights organization, listed India among the world’s practitioners of “transnational repression,” a term for governments’ use of intimidation or violence against their own citizens — dissidents, activists, journalists — in others’ sovereign territory.

India is part of an expanding roster of countries employing tactics previously associated with China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other repressive regimes. It is a trend fueled by factors ranging from surging strains of nationalism and authoritarianism to the spread of social media and spyware that both empower and endanger dissident groups.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs declined to respond to detailed questions submitted by The Post or provide comment for this article. Responding to questions raised by a Post reporter at a news briefing last week, spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said that India was still investigating the allegations and that the Pannun case “equally impacts our national security.”

Jaiswal referred reporters to previous ministry statements that targeted killings are “not our policy.”

For the Biden administration, which has spent three years cultivating closer ties with India, the assassination plots have pitted professed values against strategic interests.

Last July, White House officials began holding high-level meetings to discuss ways to respond without risking a wider rupture with India, officials said. CIA Director William J. Burns and others have been deployed to confront officials in the Modi government and demand accountability. But the United States has so far imposed no expulsions, sanctions or other penalties.

Even the U.S. criminal case reflects this restraint. Senior officials at the Justice Department and FBI had pushed to prosecute Yadav, officials said, a step that would have implicated RAW in a murder-for-hire conspiracy. But while a U.S. indictment unsealed in November contained the bombshell allegation that the plot was directed by an Indian official, it referred to Yadav as only an unnamed co-conspirator, “CC-1,” and made no mention of the Indian spy agency.

Justice Department officials who took part in the White House deliberations sided against those urging criminal charges against Yadav. Administration officials denied any undue influence. “Charging decisions are the prerogative of law enforcement alone,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson, “and the Biden NSC has rigorously respected that independence.”

The only U.S. charges made public to date are against an alleged middleman, Nikhil Gupta, who is described in the indictment as an Indian drug and weapons trafficker enlisted to hire a contract killer. Gupta, an Indian national who has denied the charges, was arrested in Prague on June 30 and remains in prison. He is awaiting a Czech court ruling on a U.S. request for his extradition.

Even in recent days, the Biden administration has taken steps to contain the fallout from the assassination plot. White House officials warned the Modi government this month that The Post was close to publishing an investigation that would reveal new details about the case. It did so without notifying The Post.

Laying a trap

For decades, RAW was regarded as a regional player, preoccupied by proxy wars with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency. Under Modi, however, RAW has been wielded as a weapon against dissidents in India’s vast global diaspora, according to current and former U.S. and Indian officials.

The U.S. operation shows how RAW tried to export tactics it has used for years in countries neighboring India, officials said, including the use of criminal syndicates for operations it doesn’t want traced to New Delhi. It also exposed what former Indian security officials described as disturbing lapses in judgment and tradecraft.

After the plot against Pannun failed, the decision to entrust Yadav with the high-risk mission sparked recriminations within the agency, former officials said. Rather than joining RAW as a junior officer, Yadav had been brought in midcareer from India’s less prestigious Central Reserve Police Force, said one former official. As a result, the official said, Yadav lacked training and skills needed for an operation that meant going up against sophisticated U.S. counterintelligence capabilities.

Attempts by The Post to locate or contact Yadav were unsuccessful. A former Indian security official said he was transferred back to the Central Reserve Police Force after the Pannun plot unraveled.

The U.S. affidavit describes Yadav as an “associate” of Gupta who procured the alleged drug trafficker’s help by arranging for the dismissal of criminal charges he faced in India. Gupta had a history of collaborating with India’s security services on operations in Afghanistan and other countries, according to a person with knowledge of his background, but he had never been used for jobs in the West.

Petr Slepicka, a lawyer in Prague who represents Gupta, declined to comment on the case except to say that his client denies the charges against him. In court filings in India, Gupta’s family members described him as an innocent “middle-class businessman” whose arrest was a case of mistaken identity. They said he traveled to Prague “for tourism” and to explore new markets for a “handicraft” business, according to the court filings.

Yadav and Gupta spent weeks trading encrypted texts about the plot to kill Pannun, according to a U.S. affidavit filed in support of the request for Gupta’s extradition. To find a willing assassin, Gupta reached out to someone he had been in touch with for at least eight years and understood to be a drug and weapons dealer. In reality, according to the affidavit, the supposed dealer was an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The two were discussing “another potential firearms and narcotics transaction,” according to the affidavit when, on May 30, Gupta abruptly asked “about the possibility of hiring someone to murder a lawyer living in New York.”

From that moment, U.S. agents had an inside but incomplete view of the unfolding conspiracy. They orchestrated Gupta’s introduction to a supposed assassin who was actually an undercover agent, according to court filings. They captured images of cash changing hands in a car in New York City — a $15,000 down payment on a job that was to cost $100,000 when completed.

At one point, the indictment said, U.S. agents even got footage of Gupta turning his camera toward three men “dressed in business attire, sitting around a conference room,” an apparent reference to Indian operatives overseeing the mission. “We are all counting on you,” Gupta told the purported assassin on the video call, according to the indictment.

Yadav indicated that there would be more jobs after Pannun, including one “big target” in Canada. But a separate hit team got to that assignment first, according to the U.S. indictment, suggesting that RAW was working with multiple criminal elements.

Hours after Nijjar was gunned down in his car on June 18 outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple in Surrey, Yadav sent a video clip to Gupta “showing Nijjar’s bloody body slumped in his vehicle,” according to the indictment.

The message arrived as U.S. authorities were laying a trap for Gupta. Seeking to draw him out of India and into a friendly jurisdiction, U.S. agents used their DEA informant to persuade Gupta to travel to the Czech Republic for what he was led to believe would be a clandestine meeting with his American contact, according to officials familiar with the operation.

Gupta arrived in Prague on June 30 — 11 days after Czech authorities, acting at the behest of U.S. officials, had secretly issued an arrest warrant for him.

As he exited Vaclav Havel Airport, Gupta was intercepted by Czech police, who ushered him into a vehicle in which two U.S. federal agents were waiting, according to court filings submitted by Gupta’s family in India. He was questioned for hours while the car meandered around the city. His laptop was seized and his phone held to his face to unlock it, according to the family petition.

Gupta was eventually deposited in Prague’s Pankrac Prison, where he remains awaiting possible extradition. Seeking help, Gupta’s family tried to reach Yadav last year but could find no trace of him, according to a person familiar with the matter. After months of near-constant contact with Gupta, the person said, CC-1 had “disappeared.”

Engaging with the underworld

Though Yadav served as RAW’s point man, current and former officials said the operation involved higher-ranking officials with ties to Modi’s inner circle. Among those suspected of involvement or awareness are Goel and Doval, though U.S. officials said there is no direct evidence so far of their complicity.

As RAW chief at the time, Goel was “under pressure” to neutralize the alleged threat posed by Sikh extremists overseas, said a former Indian security official. Goel reported to Doval, and had ties to the hard-line national security adviser going back decades.

Both had built their reputations in the 1980s, when the country’s security services battled Sikh separatists and Muslim militants. They were part of a generation of security professionals shaped by those conflicts much the way their U.S. counterparts came to be defined by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Doval, 79, has claimed roles in undercover missions from the jungles of Myanmar to the back alleys of Lahore, Pakistan — tales that contributed to his frequent depiction in the press as the “James Bond of India.”

He also exhibited a willingness to engage with the criminal underworld. In 2005, after retiring as head of India’s domestic intelligence service, he was inadvertently detained by Mumbai police while meeting with a reputed gangster. Doval was seeking to enlist one crime boss to assassinate another, according to media reports later confirmed by senior Indian officials.

Before being tapped as national security adviser by Modi in 2014, Doval publicly called for India’s security apparatus to shift from “defense” to “defensive offense” against groups threatening India from other countries, especially Pakistan.

Goel, who was then rising into the senior ranks at RAW, shared Doval’s instincts. Police forces under Goel’s command in the early 1990s were tied to more than 120 cases of alleged extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances or torture, according to a database maintained by Ensaaf, an Indian human rights group based in the United States. Goel was so closely associated with the brutal crackdown that he became an assassination target, according to associates who said he took to traveling in a bulletproof vehicle.

Former Indian officials who know both men said Goel would not have proceeded with assassination plots in North America without the approval of his superior and protector.

“We always had to go to the NSA for clearance for any operations,” said A.S. Dulat, who served as RAW chief in the early 2000s, referring to the national security adviser. Dulat emphasized in an interview with The Post that he did not have inside knowledge of the alleged operations, and that assassinations were not part of RAW’s repertoire during his tenure.

U.S. intelligence agencies have reached a similar conclusion. Given Doval’s reputation and the hierarchical nature of the Indian system, CIA analysts have assessed that Doval probably knew of or approved RAW’s plans to kill Sikhs his government considered terrorists, U.S. officials said.

A fierce crackdown

India’s shift to “defensive offense” was followed by a series of clashes between RAW and Western domestic security services.

In Australia, two RAW officers were expelled in 2020 after authorities broke up what Mike Burgess, head of the Australian intelligence service, described as a “nest of spies.”

Foreign officers were caught monitoring “their country’s diaspora community,” trying to penetrate local police departments and stealing information about sensitive security systems at Australian airports, Burgess said in a 2021 speech. He didn’t name the service, but Australian officials confirmed to The Post that it was RAW.

In Germany, federal police have made arrests in recent years to root out agents RAW had recruited within Sikh communities. Among them, German officials said, were a husband and wife who operated a website purportedly covering local Sikh events but who were secretly on RAW’s payroll.

In Britain, RAW’s surveillance and harassment of the Sikh population — especially a large concentration near Birmingham — became so egregious in 2014 and 2015 that MI5, Britain’s domestic security service, delivered warnings to Goel, who was then serving as RAW’s station chief in London.

When confronted, Goel scoffed at his counterparts and accused them of coddling Sikh activists he said should be considered terrorists, according to current and former British officials. After further run-ins, British authorities threatened to expel him, officials said. Instead, Goel returned to New Delhi and continued to climb RAW’s ranks until, in 2019, he was given the agency’s top job.

RAW’s record of aggressive activity in Britain has fanned suspicion that the agency was involved in the death of Sikh activist Avtar Singh Khanda, who died in Birmingham last year, three days before Nijjar was killed in Canada. British officials have said Khanda suffered from leukemia and died of natural causes, though his family and supporters have continued to press for further investigation.

A U.S. State Department human rights report released this month catalogued India’s alleged engagement in transnational repression. It cited credible accounts of “extraterritorial killing, kidnapping, forced returns or other violence,” as well as “threats, harassment, arbitrary surveillance and coercion” of overseas dissidents and journalists.

RAW’s operations in Western countries during Modi’s tenure have been overwhelmingly aimed at followers of the Sikh religion, especially a minority faction seeking to revive the largely dormant cause of creating a separate state called “Khalistan.”

That movement had peaked in the 1980s, when thousands were killed in violent skirmishes between the Indian government and Sikh insurgents. One brutal sequence beginning in 1984 included an Indian assault on the Sikh religion’s holiest site, the Golden Temple; the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by Sikhs in her security detail; and the bombing of an Air India flight widely attributed to Sikh extremists. A fierce crackdown quashed the insurgency, prompting an exodus of Sikhs to diaspora communities in Canada, the United States and Britain.

As Sikhs settled into their new lives abroad, the Khalistani cause went quiet until a new generation of activists — whose leaders included Pannun and Nijjar — sought to rekindle the movement with unofficial referendums on Sikh statehood and with protests that at times have seemed to glorify violence. A parade in Canada last year included a float depicting Indira Gandhi’s assassination, and Khalistan supporters have stormed and defaced Indian diplomatic facilities in Western cities.

The effort has seemed to gain little traction beyond a minority within the diaspora communit

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voidsteffy · 11 months

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If I had a paisa for everytime a feared officer who is named Vikram Rathore, is presumed dead after the villain kills him but is nursed by villagers, has a signature weapon, I would have two paise. Which is nothing in this economy but weird that it happened twice.

#manu is feral tag #vikramarkudu #jawan #indian cinema

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indian-kahani · 1 year

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Desi LGBT+ Fest 2023

@desi-lgbt-fest

Day 2: Legacy

All her life, Durga had been told that she was a good daughter.

All through school, she had been called a ‘pleasure to teach’. Students regarded her with wary awe: she was the good girl, who did her homework and listened to the teacher and never, ever stepped a foot out of line.

All my life, her father had told her, “Beti, you have to be a good girl. Strike that – you have to be the best. There are many eyes watching us.”

He was right, of course. He was a major army lieutenant – Arjit Sindh, a household name for his medals and bravery. Ever since Durga was a child, she had watched him salute the tricolour every morning, watched his juniors (and god, there were lots of them) salute to him.

While others dreamed of being artists and musicians, she dreamed of her first day holding a rifle.

While others looked up to Abdul Kalam or Lata Mangeshkar, her walls were covered in photos of Gunjan Saxena, Vikram Batra, everyone who had ever won the Param Vir chakra.

She had a legacy to inherit, a place to fill.

Her dreams may have been out of place, but they were in vivid technicolour none the less. She faced up to her dream with a steady heart.

Her father approved, and watched from a distance as the Indian Army became entrenched deep inside her heart.

She had always followed in his footsteps. The golden girl she might have been, but she was a golden girl you shouldn’t mess with. She had always been raised to be a loyal servant of the army, the loyal servant of her country.

As her father's daughter, she was proud to uphold his legacy.

Karate, Jiu Jitsu, yoga, junior boot camp. Durga was signed up for all of it, and every summer she trained without fail.

On her eighteenth birthday, she joined the army. What else could she do? I mean, it had been her dream for as long as she could remember. She hit it out of the park. She had been training to assemble a gun since she was sixteen. The other recruits were no match for her.

They were playing for glory (or so she thought).

She was playing for honour.

Or was she?

Durga saw her first at her graduation ceremony.

Her name was before Durga’s.

“Sharma, Saranika!”

Saranika. Such a beautiful name.

All of a sudden, she was reminded of her childhood when her mother sang beautiful Hindustani music. That was what Saranika Sharma's name reminded Durga of.

“Sindh, Durga!”

She snapped out of she reverie, and walked onto the stage, determined to forget the girl with the beautiful name.

Months passed. Promotion after promotion came her way. Talent, or nepotism? Who knew? Slowly but surely, she was becoming jaded. Life seemed grey and joyless, and even at the young age of twenty-one, the lines under her eyes were becoming more and more pronounced.

The day was an ordinary one – so mundane that Durga didn’t even read over the details, instead preferring to wing the training exercise. She was assigned two officers to help out. Major Raj Kuldeep and Major Saranika Sharma.

…wait, what?

She re-read the document again, eyes alight. Major Saranika Sharma.

Almost unbidden, her mind flashed back to that day, when she had heard her name but didn’t see her face. Durga’s heart stumbled at just the thought, secretive smile stretching her lips open. It hurt – maybe the first time she had smiled in days, weeks even.

She arrived at the training exercise fifteen minutes early, pretending to be absorbed in the details of the exercise.

An officer arrived, and saluted in front of her. “Ma’am!”

From the evidently male voice, her hopes were dashed already. She looked up. “Major Kuldeep.” She inclined her head in recognition, and the man smiled at her tightly. It was a regulation army smile – deferent and not too intimate.

“I believe Officer Sharma will be arriving in a few minutes, ma’am.” He informed, and she nodded, returning to her papers to hide the thumping of her heart.

Why was I feeling this way? The thought hit her all of a sudden, but she didn’t have time to process it.

She had arrived.

“Ma’am, it’s good to finally meet you.” she deferred from the standard greeting, and she looked up.

She was beautiful. My God, she was beautiful. Her cinnamon skin looked so soft, and Durga fought to tear her eyes off of her prominent collarbones-

Durga’s eyes widened as she hastily raised her eyes to meet her face.

She instantly regretted it. Wide, honest eyes, full lips, and a gorgeously sharp jawline.

Before she could say something she would regret, she greeted her. “Major Sharma, may I ask why?” Hints of curiosity pricked at her. She wanted to unravel every secret of this Saranika’s, big and small.

Saranika met her gaze with the barest hint of a challenge in the way she raised her chin. “Who wouldn’t want to meet the prodigy of the army?” she smiled with a small shrug. Major Kuldeep was watching, slack-jawed, at the casual way Major Sharma was addressing Durga, but the women had only eyes for each other.

“I hardly believe I’m a prodigy.” The words slipped out before Durga could change them, and she disguised the raw honesty in them with a short laugh. “Hard work gets you far, Major Sharma.”

Suddenly, she wanted to get as far away from this enchanting woman as possible. She could feel her back prickle with sweat and she could swear her face was heating up.

“I don’t doubt it, ma’am.” Saranika – no, she was Major Sharma, when had Durga started addressing her so casually? – replied promptly. “Talent can only get you so for before you need more to take you further.”

Durga ended the conversation with a clipped nod, checking the watch on her wrist. “We had best be going.” She turned to Kuldeep, who snapped to attention. “At ease.”

She finished the training in a daze, dismissing the recruits five minutes early with an uneasy frown on her face. Rumours were flying around that the infamous Durga Sindh had something on her mind. She heeded none of it as she headed to the mess hall to eat lunch.

Almost out of instinct, she scanned the hall for Saranika, finally noticing her tucked away in the back of the hall.

She sent her a note to come and eat with her in her office. Saranika arrived five minutes later.

Durga gestured for her to sit down. “I was impressed with your performance in the training exercise today, Major Sharma.” Bullshit. She hadn’t paid attention to even a single second of that training exercise.

Saranika ducked her head shyly, a strand of hair falling forward, and Durga resisted the urge to lean forward and tuck it behind her ear. “Thankyou, ma’am. I appreciate it.”

“Call me Durga. No need for formalities in my office.” She blurted out, cursing herself immediately as the words slipped out. That seemed to happen a lot around her.

Saranika looked up suddenly, startled. “I couldn’t possibly be so… informal, ma’am.” She hesitated.

“I insist.” Durga said.

“Very well, then… Durga-ji.”

From then on, it only got better. Lunch turned into days off, days off turned into weekends until finally, Durga worked up the courage.

“I- I wanted- what I meant to say was- the thing is- will you be my girlfriend?”

The sight of her then, with her hair loose and framing her face, was enough for Durga to plant a chaste kiss on the cheek of her girlfriend.

Only one thing was left.

Durga had to tell her father, a strict adherent to tradition and principles, that she was a lesbian.

“Papa… I met someone.”

She had phrased it carefully enough, hesitating over each and every word. Her father, aged but no less sharp, looked at her (or through her, it seemed sometimes).

“That’s lovely, beti.” His old face creased in a smile. “Bring him home this weekend, hm?”

There it was. Durga opened her mouth and closed it again, pressing her lips together in shame of her own cowardice. Her father was watching.

“He’s a Hindu, right? Not a Muslim? It’s okay if he is, as long as he’s respectful to you.” Her father tried to reassure her seeing her distress, and tears fell down Durga’s cheeks.

“She’s not a boy!” she burst out all of a sudden, hiding her face in her hands as she heard her father’s small intake of breath. Water dripped from her eyes, wetting her hands and falling in droplets onto the cold marble times.

“Accha, I see.” Her father leaned forward in his chair, wiping Durga’s tears away. “Bring her home this weekend, hm? I hope she’s pretty.”

Durga couldn’t do anything much more than stare. “You’re- you’re okay with this? But people will-”

He let out a deep chuckle. “The world has changed since I was young, Durga.” He smiled down on her fondly. “You young people are teaching us that it is okay to love whoever you love. There are people out there like you and your girlfriend, right?”

Durga nodded, open-mouthed. “But- papa- you- I’m a lesbian.”

He waved her away, a mock frown on his face. “Of course I know that now. I’m not stupid. Bring that girl home on Saturday, and I will see what food we can get for her. Leave it to me.”

Yes, her father followed tradition. Yes, he had his legacy to uphold, and his honour. But he was a man of good sense, and the world was changing after all. Why not see what good it could bring?

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Okay so I know nothing about the military, literally nothing so the ranks/greetings/whatever might be off, please suspend disbelief while reading :D and tell me what you think in reblogs/comments!

#avani #avani writes #indian-kahani #desi lgbt+ fest #lgbtq+#lesbian #military?

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haveyoureadthispoll · 5 months

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A surgeon flees a scandal in the city and accepts a job at a village clinic. He buys antibiotics out of pocket, squashes roaches, and chafes at the interventions of the corrupt officer who oversees his work. But his outlook on life changes one night when a teacher, his pregnant wife, and their young son appear. Killed in a violent robbery, they tell the surgeon that they have been offered a second chance at living if the surgeon can mend their wounds before sunrise. So begins a night of quiet work, "as if the crickets had been bribed," during which the surgeon realizes his future is tied more closely to that of the dead family than he could have imagined. By dawn, he and his assistant have gained knowledge no mortal should have. In this inventive novel charged with philosophical gravity and sly humor, Vikram Paralkar takes on the practice of medicine in a time when the right to health care is frequently challenged. Engaging earthly injustice and imaginaries of the afterlife, he asks how we might navigate corrupt institutions to find a moral center. Encompassing social criticism and magically unreal drama, Night Theater is a first novel as satisfying for its existential inquiry as for its enthralling story of a skeptical physician who arrives at a greater understanding of life's miracles.

#book: night theater #author: vikram paralkar #genre: fantasy #genre: magical realism #genre: horror #genre: indian literature

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100hands · 19 days

Text

Shankar Kanade

Bijoy Ramachandran / July 16th, 2024

for 'Creations' magazine, Sangli

Sometime in the summer of 1992, a motley group of architects of disparate dispositions organised a workshop. A house was to be designed on a linear site with roads on the two narrow ends almost a floor apart in section. I remember distinctly the sensation of suddenly becoming aware of the power of the split-level – offering prospect and refuge, creating an intimate scale and responding to location in a visceral and direct way.

This was also the first time I got the chance to engage closely with the Base Group - Nikhil Arni, Sharad Padalkar, Edgar Demello, Sanjay Mohe, Prem Chandavarkar and of course the Kanade brothers. Discussions meandered and arguments were common. As participants, the real learning was about the importance of taking positions and working at the level of small details simultaneously with a larger contextual and societal awareness. Though the notion of ‘Indianness’ preoccupied the national discourse, this workshop seemed to focus squarely on what Prem called the ‘palpability of place’.

It was intimidating to see the ease with which Mohe drew the aspirational view – incorporating into it everything to do with ‘inhabitation’ – the shade, the perfect perch and vantage. Edgar and Prem brought their wide erudition and travels to our conversations. When will we ever read all those books, internalize all those seminal projects and be able to articulate our realization with such clarity? Nikhil was the agent provocateur and a host par excellence, introducing us to great music and delectable accouterments. Padalkar, with his long Swedish experience, gently nudging us to be watchful and Navnath Kanade, an enigmatic teacher - not easily satisfied, often using metaphors to instruct us.

Shankar Kanade Sir on the other hand sat down with us to draw. He was keen to engage at that level, with us. He was curious about his own instincts and where they would lead on this interesting site. His mind racing with ideas and opportunities. I have rarely had a teacher like this - someone who got down into the trenches with us, often as unsure as us about direction, but through this journey showing us methods, strategies and general principles of engagement. Being with him was a lesson in the single-minded pursuit of joy - the masterful management of all challenges into the making of places for well-being.

Years later on a visit to Keremane, their celebrated apartment building in Bangalore, with Prof. Chhaya, I remember distinctly, Shankar Sir’s recapitulation of the cost break-up of each component of construction and how he figured out ways to reduce this. His preoccupation with affordability did not come at the cost of making places of heightened sensory delight. So many of his homes reveal their making in literal but idiosyncratic ways. The trace of the hand is immediately perceivable, manifest in the intimate scale, the glorious imperfections, and the whimsical compositions. But often this articulated exterior conceals a rich, mysteriously lit, and cavernous interior, even in the smallest of homes. The scale of the projects did not deter Shankar Sir from his preoccupation with choreographing this sense of joy and wonder. His homes reveal the great empathy he had for his clients, working closely with them to keep their homes within budget, and surprising them with this bonus of a constantly inspiring place to live.

In 2023, as part of the Dhruba Baruah Memorial lecture event in Kolhapur, I got a chance to visit ‘lal ghar’ near Sangli with Mohe, Girish Doshi and around 20 architects. We spent the day with Shankar Sir in his wonderful laterite house, with two courtyards, an ingenious play of levels, and as always, just the perfect scale. It was a wonderful day. Shankar Sir and Mohe recapitulating the early days of discovery – at JJ, working in Doshi’s office on housing and Bernard Kohn’s office on a building for Vikram Sarabhai, teaching at CEPT, the wonderful Base Group days, talking about Kanvinde, Raje, and Correa and that very particular moment in time – when the nation was seeking an architectural identity and Shankar Sir as a young architect was seeking a foothold. Shankar

Sir’s humble beginnings, his deep and long-standing passion for architecture, and a willingness to engage wholeheartedly in the work at hand are inspirational lessons for us. His ability to see opportunity in any situation and turn even the most intractable condition to create magic is the result of his deep humanity and empathy.

Mohe told us of a story of when Shankar Sir lived in Mumbai in a small room while at JJ. The roof had a large hole in it and when asked about the rains, Shankar Sir would say that when lying down it was wonderful to have the stars overhead. As young architects finding our feet in Bangalore in the 90’s, we were fortunate to have had Shankar Sir and the other wonderful architects of the Base Group who blazed a path for us to follow, showing us what it is to be a real architect – one with integrity, curiosity and an abiding humanity.

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