From seeing death numerous times in extremely large scale and violence and killings in communal riots.
Here’s the violence part of it – 1993 – 1994 and 2002.
Violence ——-
There are some things you experience when you are young that you never understand. Not because you don’t remember them.
But, you do not know what to feel about it. Life, i guess!
I learned very early what it feels like when an ordinary street stops being an ordinary street.
A road that was familiar yesterday can suddenly become dangerous. Shops that were open can have their shutters pulled down.
Streets that normally carry buses, bicycles, vendors, children and people going about their lives can become strangely empty.
And then you hear it.
Shouting.
Running feet.
A shutter crashing down somewhere.
People running with burned sticks and sharp weapons.
The rage.
A vehicle speeding away.
Someone saying, “Don’t go that way.”
Someone else saying, “Stay inside.”
You don’t necessarily understand everything that is happening.
You understand only one thing:
Something has changed.
The communal violence surrounding the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992–93 created that atmosphere across several Indian cities.
Mumbai experienced major waves of violence between December 1992 and January 1993. Ahmedabad and Delhi also experienced communal violence during that period as an extention to these matters in 1996, and 1997.
But when you are actually somewhere inside an atmosphere like that, history books don’t matter.
And then, years later, Ahmedabad happened again.
2002.
By then, I was older. I understood much more. That almost made it worse.
As a child or young person, you can be frightened by what you see without completely understanding its scale.
When you are older, you understand what a rage mob can mean. You understand what a locked shutter can mean.
You understand why a street suddenly empty of people can be more frightening than a crowded one.
You understand why someone tells you not to take a particular road.
You understand why people are watching from behind windows instead of standing outside.
You understand that ordinary people can suddenly find themselves trapped by circumstances they did not create.
Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat experienced devastating communal violence in 2002, following the Godhra train burning and subsequent retaliatory violence. Homes, businesses and places of worship were attacked, people were killed and displaced, and enormous fear spread through affected communities.
And again, the lesson was not simply fear.
It was survival.
It was learning to tread carefully through an environment where the rules of ordinary life had temporarily disappeared.
You learn to read people by their opinions they set for people. You look at a street before crossing it. You become vigilant. You watch who is standing at the corner. You even read every business name and build visual memory. You notice which shops are open. You notice which people are running and where to and which people are calmly watching. You listen to voices and tone of it. You notice silence. You learn to understand how they discriminate. You learn to read their rage.
You learn that danger doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes danger is loud. Sometimes it is completely silent.
And you learn something else:
Good people exist even when everything around their own types – looks bad.
Sometimes the person who helps you is not someone you know. Sometimes somebody opens a door.
Sometimes someone says, “Come inside.”
Sometimes someone takes a risk for another human being without asking their religion, caste, politics or background.
Sometimes somebody simply stands between you and danger.
Those people stay with you forever.
Not necessarily by name.
By memory.
Because when you are frightened and somebody chooses humanity, and you remember it. You learn from it.
I learned how to move through fear.
I didn’t become fearless because nothing frightening happened.
I became fearless because frightening things happened and I discovered that I could still think. Brain was functional.
I could still observe.
I could still make decisions.
I could still move.
I could still survive.
Fear became information rather than a command.
That distinction changed me.
And experiencing these realities at different points in life changed something else.
The first time, you learn that danger exists.
The next time, you realize that you already know how to navigate it.
You become faster at assessing a situation.
Quieter.
More deliberate.
Less reactive.
You don’t waste energy asking,
“Why is this happening?”
while you are still trying to figure out,
“What do I do next?”
That becomes instinct.
I don’t mean that I don’t recognize danger.
I recognize it very quickly.
I don’t mean that I don’t care.
I care deeply.
But I don’t automatically panic because somebody else is panicking.
I don’t automatically react because a crowd is reacting.
I don’t automatically become frightened because everyone around me has decided that something is frightening.
I learned to look first.
Think second.
Move when necessary.
And keep going.
That is probably why many things don’t shock me. I also learned, good and bad sides of every religion and every human too. Why only religion!
People sometimes wonder why I don’t react to things the way other people do.
Why I can remain quiet in chaos when somebody else is becoming emotional.
Why I can walk through situations that make other people uncomfortable.
Why i do not cry in movies and for things others cry to.
Why I don’t immediately answer provocation.
Why I don’t need to participate in every argument.
Why certain forms of intimidation simply don’t work on me.
Why i do not care about rejections, not a blink!
And why i do not care to receive approvals from anybody!
The answer goes much further back than people realize.
When you have experienced the possibility “of mere being alive” on an ordinary day can suddenly become extraordinarily dangerous, many later problems become smaller.
Someone being rude? Manageable.
Someone shouting? Somewhat Manageable.
Someone trying to intimidate me? Yeah ok, they’ll outgrow it.
I’ve seen what real danger looks like.
A difficult business situation? A disagreement? A rejection? A person trying to create drama?
None of those things automatically deserve my fear.
I’ve already learned the difference between noise and danger.
And that is an education you cannot buy.
But becoming stone does not mean cruel.
That distinction matters to me.
Quite the opposite.
The people who helped during frightening times taught me something more important than fearlessness:
Humanity is a choice.
Discrimination is a choice.
People who showed me this choice were not my friends, people who loved me or my relatives or barely even knew me –
One riot – Hindu RSS volunteer saved me. In the other, Khan Tribe leader saved me. The third one, my own wholesale shop owner saved me.
All the 3 times, i somehow did not check news and public transport was open. my bike was in repairs or it was too far to go in bike and get the parking. Since it was open, i could go and did go!
I came back in one piece. Not a scratch, not chopped, not hospitalized, not raped, not burned!
When crowds become irrational, one person can remain rational.
When people become hateful, one person can remain decent.
When everyone is protecting only themselves, one person can decide to protect somebody else, a complete stranger.
Those are the people I remember.
The good ones. Their face is in my eyes till date. Someday i may sketch them.
The ones who didn’t ask what side I belonged to.
They simply saw another human being who needed help. Simply the facts.
That is perhaps the most powerful thing violence can teach you without ever justifying the violence itself:
You learn exactly how much one decent human being can matter.
One person opening a door.
One person giving directions.
One person warning you.
One person saying, “Don’t go there.”
One person refusing to participate.
One person deciding that another person’s life matters.
Those moments can become bigger than the violence itself in your memory.
I don’t romanticize riots.
There is nothing heroic about mobs, burning buildings, women being raped, frightened families, burned alive, bloodshed or people being targeted because of who they are.
The 2002 Gujarat violence caused enormous loss of life and displacement, while the 1992–93 Mumbai violence likewise resulted in hundreds of deaths and widespread destruction.
These are not stories about courage because violence is admirable. They are stories about courage because people sometimes have to find a way to remain human while surrounded by fear.
That is the part I carry. It made me fearless, calm, and be non reactive.
In those days, the next phase is then the curfew days, public limited time and shops—-you learn to feed your family within those limitations, live safely and just pass through the days.
So yes, thus, it made me stone. Not like the ones in river or no feelings or being numb to emotions but like a mountain would.
Stone in the sense of having a foundation.
Hard enough not to be moved by passing storm.
Quiet enough not to be controlled by noise.
Strong enough to stand when other people are running.
Bold enough to hold family together.
Calm enough to think when other people cannot.
And still human enough to remember the people who reached out a hand when they didn’t have to.
Maybe that is why I don’t fear or react to many things that other people do.
It isn’t because I am unaware.
It is because I have already learned what deserves a reaction or my any feeling.
I have learned that not every loud voice is dangerous or is safe.
Not every confrontation requires an answer or a question.
Not every threat deserves attention.
Not every crisis requires panic.
And not every person deserves access to your peace.
Fear is not always your enemy.
Sometimes fear teaches you to see that brain works!
Sometimes danger teaches you to think.
Sometimes survival teaches you silence.
And sometimes the kindness of one stranger teaches you that even when a city seems to have lost its mind, there are still good people inside it.
Those experiences didn’t make me heartless.
They made me difficult to shake.
They made me observant.
They made me independent.
They made me much less interested in unnecessary drama.
They taught me to tread carefully without walking timidly.
They taught me to recognize danger without becoming obsessed with it.
They taught me that courage isn’t always loud.
Sometimes courage is simply staying calm.
Sometimes courage is moving quietly through chaos.
Sometimes courage is helping someone else.
And sometimes courage is refusing to let what happened around you determine what kind of person you become.
When the real test comes, you don’t need to be the loudest person in the room.
You just need to know what matters.
That is what I mean when I say:
It made me stone.
All this experiences were in my 19-20 years of age. Life taught me to live like a hyper being.
I am this alive to all odds.
Evens did not make life ever—odds did. Thus the saying, what are the odds, against the odds!
Sometimes, i feel i cheated death with worthily value proof of my existence!
Number of times Ms Hetal cheated Death –
– 3 riots, before age of 20
– 3 miscarriages, 22-30 years
– and about 10 deadly accidents – sports, construction and road accidents. Before age of 18.
– 1 time she fell from tree—just a hilarious bet with friends to climb tree in certain time. Won it too but then all the kids fell – after the win. It was an experience to go to hospital as group of 6 kids. Hilarious but true! Cops did not mind. In whole city which was forest and barely occupied, they enjoyed being busy with just handful of legally naughty kids doing something to keep themselves busy. Legally hilariously naughty 🙂
Thats why Ms Hetal is like this.
—-
From Ms Hetal’s pers blog.
Grace And Grooves by Hetal Nagaraj (hetaln.com) 
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