Conversations on Palestine with an activist, a poet, a scholar

Teredide Mane O Baa Athithi (Come in, I have opened my doors dear guest) is an offshoot of Mere Ghar Aakar Toh Dekho, a national campaign in India, in Karnataka. It aims to counter the forces of hate, bigotry and polarization that have gained ground in the country by redrawing boundaries and expanding notions of trust and community. The campaign involves participants from diverse backgrounds opening their own homes and hearts to guests from equally varied locations. Teredide Mane has grown as a community, learning and unlearning through practice the concepts of guest and host, home and house, consent and comfort, celebration and sharing, listening and observing—both commonalities and diversity. [Content and editing by Madhu Bhushan, Winnu and Anita Cheria. Illustrations and design by Winnu]

We invite you into this moving and powerful conversation that has been reproduced largely in the speakers’ own words, and hope that you will add to it and take it forward. Read the whole conversation here (https://shorturl.at/JzvI5). Or a shorter note on the conversation here (https://shorturl.at/NkLHz).

Over the past months, the genocide in Palestine has come up multiple times in our meetings. Apart from engaging in acts of protest and solidarity, there was a need to go beyond ‘news noise’, and meet people engaged with and from Palestine. We decided to create a virtual space, one that was safe and intimate, to be able listen deeply to friends we had connected with in the course of our work and life journeys. This conversation, with Lisa Suhair Majaj, Smadar Lavie and Issa Samander in October, 2024, came about as a result of this intention.

Lisa Suhair Majaj is a passionate Palestinian American poet whose writings and poetry echo with the spirit of the land and people that she was herself exiled and alienated from.

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