Day 2 - Reva Joshee

To Smt. Kaur Dai and Pt. Lakhpat Rai, my great grandparents, who both passed when my father was still quite young….

Dear Pardadiji and Pardadaji,

I grew up hearing stories of the two of you – your generosity, your kindness, your work for justice. The movement of which you were part, the Arya Samaj, sought to end the British rule in India and to reform Hindu traditions, particularly traditions of inequality based on gender and caste. You had nine children, seven of them daughters, and I imagine that one of the reasons you helped create educational opportunities for girls was because you wanted those opportunities for your own daughters. I hope it would please you to think that many of your granddaughters and great granddaughters were able to get advanced degrees and pursue important careers in fields including medicine, law, and education. I think that today you would say the victories you helped win for us are never secure and you would ask us to keep up the fight. I want to believe that you would also say we have a duty to fight for those of your descendants, and the descendants of others, that identify as queer, transgender, and nonbinary – words you would not recognize but I think the sense of  justice denied people because of their gender identification would touch your hearts as it does mine.

I wonder how you navigated the colonialism that surrounded you. I imagine that you saw freedom as a right and responsibility. And I think that you saw the link between injustice within the community and the injustice perpetrated by the colonial powers. I think you recognized the need to work strongly for justice in the community just as you worked for freedom. Today, I see evidence of injustice in other parts of the world and I think, even if I cannot contribute directly to changing the situations of those who are geographically distant from me, if I work to address the injustice I see around me, this contributes to building a better world overall. This is part of what I learned from my parents, who were both influenced by you in the ways they engaged with the world.

I wonder if you thought about the what the world would look like once India had won its freedom. I know you thought that part of your duty was to use your resources to help the greater community and so you donated to schools that would provide education for girls and boys of all castes and classes. Would that spirit of generosity have been eroded in the face of a world where greed seems to be more powerful than community? What might you have done to help others to see the violence that lives in greed? Would you have engaged them in conversation?  Would you have continued to live according to what you believed to be true and hoped that would help to influence those around you? What I know is that you would do what you could from where you were. That is a lesson I take from you.

I wonder what you would make of the overt violence all around us. How would you respond to the horrors of Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, and other sites of daily killing and destruction? Mom and Dad always taught me that I needed to understand and feel deeply my interconnections with all other beings. If I felt this, I could never imagine hurting or killing anyone else because this would mean hurting or killing a part of me. Today, this is part of the education I seek to extend through my work. While this might not reach those who lead through hatred, I hope this will influence those who might otherwise see no path but hatred and violence. I hope this will reach those who are being conditioned by the world around them to hate and distrust others because they are of a different religion, race, ethnicity, or nationality. I hope that we can one day replace the headlines of divisions among us with affirmations of shared life.

As I think of you today, my dear great grandparents, I know you cannot have imagined the beautiful life your grandson and granddaughter-in-law, my father and mother, gifted me. You cannot have imagined the privileges I have had and continue to have. Even as I see despair around me, the hope I see within me springs from the spirit you bequeathed all of us. That spirit reminds me that, even if I do not take part in mass protests or public demonstrations, if I take every opportunity to contribute positively, to share what I have, to care for those in need, to see the value in all beings, and to live through love, you will be proud of me. You probably would not have seen your own actions as revolutionary, but they did help to change the world, and they have led me to where I am today. I thank you for the values and strength you left behind.

With much love and deepest respect, 
​
Your great granddaughter, reva
(Edmonton, Alberta)