Who will Stand Beside You?

Who will stand beside you?

I don’t know if you’re aware of the uproar going across the nation presently, but in a nutshell it’s getting compared with Hitler’s germany so you can realise how bad the situation is.

And usually I don’t talk about politics because people are sensitive to the topic, but it is a big part of any community! Politics is just another name for the Leadership of this community called a ‘Country’. 

Imagine an office where you love the work, you love going, you love meeting your colleagues, except your boss. Your boss makes lewd comments on your fellow women colleagues (Women’s Rights or the Nirbhaya incident). He/she shouts and fires anyone who talks back. He/she points at you again and again and bully you with remarks about how bad you look, or how your behaviour is different than others (Section 377-LGBTQ community), or how bad your work is, or keeps mentioning how your parents didn’t give you proper values. But you can’t do anything about your boss because he/she has all the power over you.

Would you be able to work in this office? Under such constant fear?

I know, I wouldn’t. And I would have two options then. Either get fired for speaking up, or shift to another company hoping for a better boss. In either case, I would have to lose all my colleagues that I had started becoming friends with.

Or, the other option could be, that all of us, me and my colleagues could stand up infront of our boss and show him the strength in our togetherness. To trust each other that neither of us will leave the side of the other. That when someone speaks up, others would hold her hand and show support and warmth and love. Because speaking up needs courage, and knowing that we won’t be left abandoned and alone, once we speak up, amplifies our courage.

And it doesn’t happen by showing up once. It only happens if we stick together, again and again and again, everytime the boss does anything to anyone. Standing by each other’s side, taking our hands together. 

Because next time it could be you that the boss bullies. And the only question that’ll come to your mind then is – “Who will stand beside me?”

I invite you tonight to share any such stories, thoughts, emotions, feelings that may have haunted you of abandonment, of distrust, of feeling alone even when you have thousands of ‘friends’.