Kern Carter's Blog, page 87
October 20, 2021
The Power of My Facebook Community
(Photo by Leah Kelley on Pexels )
It was summer and I was commuting to college. Passing beneath the shady, tree-lined avenue on the approach road to campus, I realized that it was not as cool beneath it as usual. I put my head out and looked up. I realized, to my utter shock, horror and disbelief, that someone had been clandestinely chopping down those 50-year old trees. Four of those old rain-trees, so huge that their leaves met across the broad, two-lane road, had disappeared. I was so perturbed that I don’t know how I conducted my four lectures that day.
I went home seething: and I reached out to my community, my Facebook community.
I have been teaching for three decades and my kids are scattered all around the world. These kids are journalists, police officials, ministers in the government, social activists, bloggers, university professors, actors, models and sports celebrities. It was a general post I put up, but there was instant response. The response converted into concrete action, letters in newspapers, calls for an inquiry. And then I heard, from the highest source, that the trees had to be cut down because of some terminal rot caused by something called the mealy bug. I was devastated: but at least I knew, from the horse’s mouth, as it were, the truth.
In one of our villages, a boy born in utter poverty wanted to educate himself. Kind-hearted school teachers, without any recompense at all, coached him day and night and the child studied, sitting beneath lighted lamp posts on the public road, owing to lack of electricity in his one-room shack.
He scored 96 percent at the Public Board Secondary Exams. Two years later, again with the help of compassionate teachers and administrators, his fees were waived off, and he continued his studies. He scored 98 percent in the engineering entrance exam and he was invited to join the course. He was ecstatic, but NOW he needed money. Tuition fees, hostel fees, money for books.
I appealed again for help on Facebook. Within a week, my kids from all over the world wrote in asking, “Teacher, where do we send the money?” A former student living in Australia wanted to send me 100,000 Rs. He asked whether he could send it to my bank account. I was overwhelmed. They were all on standby, all ready. No questions asked.
But with so much publicity, the Government had got into the act and decided to finance the child’s entire education.
I wrote back, thanking all my good Samaritans, and explained that everything was sorted.
We have a sisterhood of friends and colleagues on Facebook, who lend each other support and encouragement “when things go wrong, As they sometimes will.”
Every time I launch a book, I invite people via Facebook. When I launched my sixth book, “ Have a Blessed Day,” the college was closed for the festival vacation and were it not for Facebook, I wouldn’t have been able to invite anyone. As it is, thanks to Facebook, it was the most well attended launch of all of them.
All my former editors, book cover designers and publishers are also on Facebook. My sons, living in another country, my former travel companions, random strangers who became staunch friends, all of us connect through Facebook. I know it is probably politically incorrect to say so, but I find my community, the community that stays connected through Facebook, very indispensable for my well-being, general joy and good cheer.
This is in response to the very relevant, pertinent prompt of CRY, the Power of Community. Now, more than at any other time in history, we need to build bridges, rather than walls.
The Power of My Facebook Community was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Life Dancer
Beneath the empty skyI stood alone.A gentle breeze stirred the waves,not fierce nor wild, but playful,spraying drops of rainbow light.
October 19, 2021
Call For Submissions: What Have You Given Up for Love?
The willingness to compromise can sometimes be a necessary part of love, but how do we know when we have given too much?
For the latest series of Love & Literature, writer Allison Gaines reflects on her experience with dating rappers who’s career and dreams she often put before her own.
In Heartbreak, Home & Hip Hop, she states:
“After all, I was born to be more than eye-candy, sitting near the stage clapping for a man’s self expression. I had dreams too.”
So let’s talk about sacrifice. Whether it be for family, an intimate relationship or something else, what have you given up to make love work?
It can be a relationship that has ended or one that is still thriving. We’re wondering what are your limits for making sacrifices or changes for the person you love?
**Quick note: We ARE NOT accepting new writers at the moment. We’ll likely open up to new writers sometime in the new year.Same rules still apply:You can submit to this or ANY of our past writing prompts. Just scroll through our previous newsletters. They’ll be marked “Call for Submissions.”If you’re already a writer for CRY, go ahead and submit.Be as creative as you want in your submissions. As long as you stick to the topic, we’ll consider it.Just because you submit doesn’t mean we’ll post. If you haven’t heard back from us in three days, consider that a pass.Please reach out if you have any questions at all. If you are new to Medium, here’s how you submit a draft to a publication.
Call For Submissions: What Have You Given Up for Love? was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Accepting Mirrors and Running Away from Photos
After years of avoiding mirrors and facing them, now photos turn into a nightmare.
Image Credits: tripzilla.inI never knew I was grappling with body image issues and dysmorphia until it accidentally came up in a discussion with a therapist last year. It was eye-opening and I’ve been making strides ever since. Today, when I look at my reflection in a mirror, I don’t instinctually go on a rant about how certain parts look disproportionate to the rest of my body. But photos and cameras are a completely different story.
Photos are very public for some reason. You feel very self aware while they’re being taken and you know others will see it after it’s done. You’ll never find a single selfie of mine on my phone. It’s because whenever I take one, I go back and delete it after staring at it for too long, assured that I look horrible. It’s confusing when you feel pretty in a mirror but feel uncomfortable looking at a similar reflection on the selfie camera. Is it because of the knowledge that someone else might see it? Or is it that my reflection is temporary but my photo will stay around longer? It’ll remind me of everything that went wrong in that moment while the mirror keeps the moment a secret that only the both of you know.
The secrecy of the reflectionThere is always the knowledge that I own my reflection in the mirror. I can look at it, I can appreciate the woman there. I know no one else will see me in this moment, as I see it. It’s a personal moment — a secret. When I move away from it, I know that this portrait of me will be gone. It is transient and I love the temporariness and control I have over how I get to show myself in that moment.
But a photo of myself will always be available for many more pairs of eyes to view and think about. And the lesser the things to focus on, the more they focus on me. They’ll probably see how I have a tight smile and how that smile is toothy. How my body is awkward or how my hair looks ridiculous.
I can rarely be myself in photos where I’m on my own and that just makes this representation of myself ten times worse. The person in that photo is a stranger and I’m hit with this sudden realization that that is not the person I know from the mirror.
Am I OK about this dual perception? No…So which perception of myself do I believe? The reflection that only I know of or the one that everyone sees in photos? I don’t like the tight-smiled, tense person I see in photos and this conundrum makes recovery from body dysmorphia tougher.
… but will I work on it? Yes.Also, how do I deal with it? While I avoided taking solo pictures altogether, now I go ahead and do it anyway with the full knowledge that I’ll get it deleted later. My selfies spend a few minutes in my gallery before they end up in the trash. I grab someone or something in any situation involving a photo of myself being taken. And I suppose I will keep doing this until I get more comfortable with self portraits on my phone just the way I eventually faced the mirror head-on. After all, this is a journey and a journey never happens until you start moving forward.
Accepting Mirrors and Running Away from Photos was originally published in CRY Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
