Life – Page 3 – Hearts Still Care

Cancel Culture

Published on April 7, 2025April 7, 2025 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

“Cancel culture” is a term tossed around with reckless ease. It is at once a source of panic for the powerful and a tool of resistance for the marginalised. It is weaponised, misunderstood, over-applied, and under-theorised. But for me, it is something quieter. A deeply personal act. Not a call to arms, but a call to account. I don’t cancel at random, nor do I cancel to trend. I cancel to think. To feel. To stay true.

Let me be clear: I don’t believe in dehumanising those who think differently. I don’t believe in violence—verbal or physical—as a way of enforcing ideological alignment. And yet, I live in a country where the state has weaponised cancel culture far more violently and effectively than any hashtag ever could.

In today’s political landscape, democracy has been reduced to a theatre of obedience. Speak out, and you’re branded anti-national. Question power, and masked goons appear to “correct” your thinking—with lathis, with bulldozers, with threats to livelihood and safety. Institutions once meant to uphold democracy now police dissent. Universities, artists, journalists, and even schoolchildren are not spared. The State has adopted cancel culture—but its version is not moral disengagement. It is erasure. Brutal, literal, and often irreversible.

So then the question arises: What is cancel culture really? Is it this authoritarian intolerance of critique? Or is it something else entirely?

Sociologist Max Weber spoke of the “monopoly on legitimate violence” that the State holds—yet in today’s climate, we must ask: what legitimises that violence when it is used not to protect the people but to silence them? Antonio Gramsci would point to hegemony: how dominant ideas are normalised through cultural institutions, making the dissenting voice seem irrational, even dangerous. And Michel Foucault, ever prescient, would remind us that power doesn’t merely punish; it produces knowledge, truth, and identity. In such a scenario, calling out a public figure or institution becomes less about cancellation and more about survival.

We must be able to distinguish between public accountability and State-sanctioned suppression. Cancel culture, in its most honest form, is a civilian tool. It allows individuals to reject systems, figures, or works that no longer align with their ethics. It is non-violent. It is reflective. It is—at best—an expression of democratic choice.

So when I withdraw my support from someone like J.K. Rowling, it is not a call for her destruction. It is an act of disengagement. I find her views on trans people reprehensible, even though her books shaped generations. The contradiction doesn’t escape me. Nor does the discomfort of reading Neil Gaiman now, knowing the sexual abuse allegations surrounding him. I don’t cancel from hate—I cancel from heartbreak.

And yet, I know the world isn’t black and white. The MeToo movement exposed thousands of valid stories, but it also caught up innocent people—collateral damage in a much-needed revolution. Gandhi boycotted foreign goods to build self-reliance and defiance, but even that choice was not free of complications. These were symbolic acts, deeply political but also deeply personal.

The irony is that while critics decry the “intolerant left” for cancelling, the right has mastered the art of cancellation through brute force. They demolish homes, censor films, break stages, imprison poets, and ban books. Their version of cancel culture wears a boot and carries a stick. But violence is not cancellation—it is suppression. And suppression, unlike cancellation, leaves no room for return, reformation, or redemption.

So here’s my dilemma: If we don’t think through our cancellations, we become the mirror image of the oppressor. But if we never cancel—if we always “separate art from the artist,” if we forever “agree to disagree”—then at what point does silence become complicity?

Sociological theory suggests that no act is free from the power structures around it. But the more we think, the more valid our choices become. Thoughtfulness is the soul of ethical cancellation. It doesn’t always come with clarity. Sometimes it comes with conflict, with sour tastes in the mouth, with the slow erosion of childhood heroes. But that is the burden of having a conscience.

So no, I do not cancel to destroy. I cancel to define. Not others—but myself.

And if thinking makes that act more valid, then I will keep thinking. Loudly, privately, messily. Until it makes sense. Or until I must act again.

your book

Published on December 21, 2024December 21, 2024 by Harpreet Chhachhia1 Comment

I was cleaning a drawer
Filled with documents and such.
A book I had stashed away
Peeped out from a corner.

It had your poems and accounts
And an old, faded rose.
I forgot if you or I had saved the bloom,
But your handwriting was enough
To send me into a spiral.

The pages of the book were yellow,
Your words were written in pencil,
Your handwriting curvy
And almost illegible.
It was a struggle;
Then your voice
Shone in the words.

The first paragraph I read
Struck me—like a surprise hug.
It was about a sadness
And a wait—like all of life,
With dried petals caught in between.

You reached out to tell me
The written word means much;
It finds light and memory
Through life’s corners in dirty drawers.

The Favourite

Published on November 29, 2024 by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Growing up, I was incredibly close to my grandmother. I called her Dadan, an affectionate term for Daadi, which means grandmother in Hindi/Punjabi. She was my rock, my constant source of warmth and love. I was also the favourite of both my paternal aunts. The eldest, who had stepchildren, and the youngest, who had no children of her own, poured their affection into me. My youngest aunt, during her courtship days, often took me along on her dates. Together, we visited beautiful hotels and places, and those moments felt magical in my childhood. When she married, I was only six years old, and her absence created a void. I felt as though I had lost a cherished friend.

[l-r]Munni Pua, Dadan, Goodie Pua and me (in the corner)

But my grandmother, my Dadan, made up for that loss in every possible way. She loved me fiercely, making me feel like the sun and the moon in her eyes. I felt it too, deep in my soul. My cousins and sibling often claim, to this day, I was spoiled by her and my aunts. Perhaps I was, but their love shielded me from a harsher reality. My parents were far from ideal. My father was abusive, an alcoholic, and, from the age of 13 to 19, his physical violence escalated, fuelled by his hatred for my sexuality. My mother, meanwhile, was preoccupied with earning a living and running a household. She was emotionally distant, perhaps sensing that I was different and not the son she had envisioned. She redirected her energy towards my younger sister, Geetanjali, who, being four years younger, became the focus of her affection and aspirations.

When my mother left the joint family, taking me away from my grandmother, I was about to turn 13. My sister was barely eight or nine, giving my mother ample opportunity to mould her into the perfect daughter. I, however, remained the imperfect son—a reminder of the family my mother was trying to leave behind. I was the unique link between her new life and the one she had given up, while my sister became her connection to her own family. This duality shaped our relationships, and as the years passed, I felt punished for the love I had received from my paternal grandmother and aunts.

At the time, I couldn’t understand any of this. All I knew was that I wanted to maintain my bond with my grandmother and aunts, but distance creates rifts in even the strongest relationships. Back then, mobile phones weren’t available, and my home life became a nightmare of abuse and violence. After a particularly horrific incident, where my father nearly strangled me, my mother finally decided to pursue divorce. This further deepened the distance between me and my paternal family.

In my twenties, I reconnected with my eldest aunt. By then, I was navigating the aftermath of a failed relationship and battling severe depression. Our bond took on a deeper, more complex meaning, rooted in shared pain and an understanding that transcended words. But by the time my grandmother passed away when I was 25, I felt as though a part of my heart had been burned away, leaving a scar that would never heal. She had been more of a mother to me in those formative years than my own mother, and her absence left an aching void.

Now, as I look back, I realise that my grandmother’s love was the anchor that held me steady. With her gone, and both my aunts having also passed away, I feel as though I have lost the last remnants of unconditional love in my family. Today, it often feels like my mother and sister are united against me. While this may not be entirely true, the feeling of alienation is overwhelming. It’s as if the familial bonds that once nurtured me have unravelled, leaving me adrift.

I wish I could remember more vividly the years between one and twelve when love and warmth surrounded me. Perhaps those memories would balance out the lack of affection I feel now. But dwelling on the past serves little purpose, except to remind me that, for a time, I was truly loved, cherished, and cared for. That knowledge is both a comfort and a sorrow, a bittersweet reminder of what I have lost.