Brij:
Your reflections on what it means to be a father had me going back and looking through old photos. 

My dad, Dr. Paul Christian, passed in 2006, 15 years ago. 

Let me introduce you to him:

I hope you enjoy these photos!

– sonya

Hello, Sonya –

Father’s Day has been a hard concept for me to imbibe, foreign in its meaning. Father, as a significant part of parenthood, is alive in every breath. To carve out 24hrs in a year to celebrate, a part of parenthood seemed superficial, ceremonial and unnecessary to me. Cultural baggage of rural India bestowed that rigidity on my thought.

Time and place have contrived to accommodate another dimension of love in this inflexible mind. Love is innate to every heartbeat, but a designated day can help highlight those emotions.

Traditionally, father is a guide, mentor, provider and role model for kids.

Truth be told, beneath all that façade of strength and inaccessibility, he aspires only to be a friend.

That’s the Father’s Day present a father awaits.

-Brij

Hello, Sonya!

Thank you for sharing your Juneteenth message. I’d like to share my own thoughts:

Juneteenth, an amazing amalgam in calendar that merges numerics of days with a month, a unique distinction.

Empowerment with a meaning!

It’s an unbearable shame that some humans, beastly in their predisposition, transiently empowered, morally degraded and profit inspired, unleashed their selfishness on the vulnerable and naive.

Slavery is not unique to a time or place.

It’s time slavery has no time or place.

The US has been transformative in emancipation of humanity. The sin of slavery is foundational to that transformation. That sin needs salvation.

Salvation is in solution, not guilt transference. Empathy is my time travel vehicle.

I’m taking a dive. With due deference, it’s a dive taken by an immigrant who is an American by choice – and proud in his choice.

The context is necessary.

So also is the success of the greatest experiment in human fulfillment, called America. My vantage point is flawed: darts welcome.

At a personal level, when my child sniffled, I feared the worst and failed to sleep. How can one reconcile with the enormity of pain of an unsuspecting mother, whose child was kidnapped, never to return, always to be abused. Abuse, rape, diminished existence, exploitation, murder and lynchings – continued not for decades, but centuries.

Taxation without representation did not seem to rhyme with that crime.

Shredded treaties written in vanishing ink of deceit perpetrated the same crimes to the near extinction of the Native Americans.

Perspective on ownership is relevant.

Notion Americana is ill supported by its territorial claims but favorably anchored by its soaring rhetoric.

A rhetoric that finds favors in my heart.

I came to the USA to seek salvation in soul and flight in spirit.

I’m here to tell you how.

Perfection is a pursuit, and humans are not divine. The American journey is a melody where sad songs tickle, but romance invites.

It’s that prism, if I was a descendant of a slave, I will look through. The road I travel is rough, the road my slave forefathers travelled infinitely worse.

Fairness is a pursuit.

The incline on my side of the road is steeper. That’s why I will seek parity through longer strides and hurried steps. I will overwhelm the prejudice. I will always remember the scars. I will not inflict them on others. My honor demands that. My forefathers encourage me so.

It’s my turn to make the world a better place for my kids. And their friends of all colors. Love will have to be color blind.

But I will never submit to inequitability. The weak smell susceptibility in generosity. My generosity is in self empowerment, shared success and collective enhancement. I forgive, but give no more.

I urge the people in power to empower the weak. Let’s raise the tide.

-Brij

Hello Brij!

Today is Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans. This week, it was recognized as a federal holiday after President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.

I thought I would share my letter from last year leading up to Juneteenth events.

Until next time….

-sonya