Tag: thoughts

On Looking Down, and Looking In

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I met someone recently—someone I’d spoken to online—at a party I attended not long ago. In person, though, something felt immediately off. Not because of chemistry or the lack of it, but because of an almost compulsive need he seemed to have: to look down on everything around him.

The party wasn’t good enough.

The music wasn’t up to the mark.

The people weren’t interesting enough.

Nothing passed muster. Everything required commentary, and all of it was dismissive.

He told me he was 22. And instinctively, I wondered if this was an age thing. But then I stopped myself. I was once that age too. I don’t remember needing to belittle an entire room to feel significant within it.

What unsettled me more was the familiarity of it. I’ve encountered this posture before—among people I’ve known, been friends with, sometimes even admired at one point. A certain self-appointed elite, defined not by kindness or depth, but by what and whom they reject. How others dress. How they speak. What music they like. Where they come from. Everything becomes a metric for exclusion.

I’m not pretending I’m immune to prejudice. I’m not. I know exactly where mine lies.

I don’t tend to judge people by caste, class, race, or colour. But I do judge—quietly, perhaps arrogantly—on intellectual and emotional grounds. Empathy matters deeply to me. Curiosity matters. The ability to question inherited beliefs matters. And yes, I struggle with people who are blinded by unexamined faith or rigid dogma. That is my bias. I own it.

So the uncomfortable question arose: was I doing something similar to him, just dressed in better language?

I don’t think it’s the same. Or at least, I hope it isn’t.

Because there is a difference between choosing not to engage, and actively deriding. Between recognising incompatibility, and making contempt a personality trait. What I witnessed wasn’t discernment—it was dismissal masquerading as sophistication.

There’s something deeply sad about believing that to appear intelligent, dapper, or “above it all,” one must constantly signal what one is not. That one must shrink others to inflate oneself. It’s a brittle kind of confidence, and it cracks easily.

Perhaps age does play a role. At 22, there is often a frantic need to impress—by saying the right things, having the right opinions, aligning oneself with the “correct” tastes. Sometimes that performance hardens into habit. Sometimes it softens with time. I don’t know which way it will go for him.

What I do know is this: I don’t need to pull anyone down to feel whole. I don’t need to sneer at a room to belong in it. If I don’t resonate, I can simply step away—with grace.

We live in a world already cruel enough, stratified enough, lonely enough. Choosing empathy over elitism isn’t naïveté; it’s resistance.

And perhaps the real marker of maturity—emotional, intellectual, human—is not how sharply we judge, but how gently we hold our differences.

Memorabilia

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

I’ve lived fifty years now. And lately, I find myself drifting gently—sometimes with longing, sometimes with quiet acceptance—into the soft interiors of my past. Rooms, trees, dogs, balconies. I don’t just remember—I love my past.

It comes in flashes. Sitting in goodie Pua’s room, which once was mine. Me on the floor, a book in hand, staring out at a distant building, the same building I used to gaze at as a child, wondering what life would become. There was a hush to those hours. A small stillness, and a vast world just beyond.

I think of Bonzo, my first dog. Amruttara. His head in my lap, and Jim Reeves crooning through the speakers. “Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone…”—a soundtrack to a time when love felt near, and sorrow hadn’t yet introduced itself.

There was the balcony. That sacred space. My chacha painted his bold, brilliant works there. My grandmother and I sat in wordless rhythm. From there, I watched kestrels fly, tracing circles in the sky for what seemed like hours. Below was Guru Nanak Park, where trees held my childhood laughter like old secrets.

I was taught about Christmas by my closest friends—all girls—who showed me how traditions bloom when shared. I belonged, even if I wasn’t born into their stories. I had my gang too—two Muslim boys. We played without borders. Our games were pure mischief and sunburnt delight.

Then came school. That raucous theatre of growth and crushes and petty fights and stolen glances. Vignettes of benches, chalk dust, and shy grins.

I could go on. I do go on. Because memory doesn’t end—it spills forward, uninvited but always welcome. And then come the losses. The quiet absences. So many deaths. Yet I don’t write this to mourn. Everyone loses. Some have lives infinitely harder than mine. But still—I feel deeply. I remember deeply.

Now, at fifty, a strange quiet has come over me. Not sadness exactly. Not peace either. Something like a hush. A knowing.

I’m still learning things about myself. I haven’t stopped. I still draw attention; I’m still attractive to men. But more than that—I’m aware now that nothing lasts. Everything simply becomes more. I am becoming more.

And yet—I am tired. The body reminds me of its mortality. Aches linger longer. Exhaustion settles faster.

It reminds me of Mary Carson’s words to Father Ralph in The Thorn Birds:

“How unfair, how goddamned unfair it is that the body must age while the heart stays so young. Still wanting, still feeling, still yearning.”

That’s me. Still wanting. Still feeling. Still yearning.

And then, books—my old companions—have come back into my life. I’ve started reading again. And I’m in awe. Words pierce me in ways they didn’t before. Or perhaps, I’m just more porous now. I wish I had never stopped writing. I love it. It’s where I meet myself most honestly.

Sometimes, in reading, I stumble upon truths that feel like echoes of my own heart. Like this, from Marcel Proust:

“The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object…which we do not suspect.”

For me, that object might be a book spine, a balcony railing, the fur on a dog’s head, or a patch of sunlight on a floor.

Or this, by Joan Didion:

“I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.”

And indeed, I have. But not with sadness. Just a quiet nod to all the Harpreets I’ve been.

And finally, this line by James Baldwin speaks to the weight of remembering:

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”

Reading, remembering, writing—they make me feel less alone. They remind me that while time may take, it also deepens.

And in all of this reflection, perhaps one of the most important things I’ve learnt is this: I no longer owe anyone an explanation. Not for my life, not for my beliefs, not for who I love, or how I live. I should’ve learnt this when I was younger, but back then I was still trying to prove something to the world—that people like me exist, that we matter, that we deserve to be heard. I wanted to prove that we belong.

But now I see it for what it was. Most of the people who tried to drag me into arguments weren’t interested in the truth. They were interested in control. In power. It wasn’t the content of the argument that mattered to them—it was the fact that I reacted. That I gave them my energy.

Now? I don’t.

There are many arguments not worth having. And silence, I’ve come to realise, is golden—especially when you’re surrounded by those who have no intention of listening. Many people around me are naysayers. Not sceptics—scepticism is curious. These people are dismissive. They’re already decided on their truths—whether about religion, sexuality, science, history, or faith.

I don’t have the bandwidth anymore. Nor the energy. And most certainly, not the inclination to engage with these fucktards.

I’d rather sit with a book. Or with my memories. Or just quietly breathe, knowing that I’ve lived fully, fiercely, and without regret.

I suppose I am someone to be feared and loved. Feared, because I’ve lived, and survived, and carry a quiet intensity. Loved, because my heart has never shut down, not once, despite all it has seen.

I may be growing older, but in so many ways, I am only now growing into myself.

Cancel Culture

Published on 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.