Reena’s Exploration Challenge #140

Welcome back to the Exploration Challenge!

PROMPT 140

The theme for this week is

Juneteenth

Going by the dictionary, it is

“a holiday celebrated on 19 June to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the US.”

I would take it ahead to celebrate emancipation or liberation of any kind – physical, mental, emotional or spiritual.

So often, we are slaves to our own beliefs and mind-sets, and do not realise it is a bondage, till something happens to prove the contrary.

Here, millions of migrant workers travelled back to their own villages despite the risk, because they did not have money to pay rent in the cities. In one state, the government has formulated schemes to help them stay and prosper in the villages. Maybe, they now realise the futility of migration to cities, which chucked them out like a fly in the soup.

A nation used to housemaids is now managing on their own, and not feeling the pinch as much. They have got used to the ‘new normal’. It is a liberation from dependence.

Families have accepted that it is better to stay afar, but safe, and nobody is blamed for not ‘being there’ physically.

Weddings and celebrations are being held with maximum 50 persons in attendance, funerals with 15 or 20, and people are learning the benefits of small scale.

A cousin of mine was in splits while telling me the meagre amount they had spent in that month, because the avenues to spend had closed down.

This is not a discussion about the pros and cons of each element of change, but acceptance of a new normal. It is liberation. It is emancipation.

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