I’ve learnt this year that your hands can never be cleaned of the blood and sweat of others who didn’t deserve to be where they are.

No , don’t run away, It’s a small story. Listen.

I went to a free Tibet protest the other day. They screamed , they cried for their parents in Tibet who they were afraid to contact, in case the Chinese government found out. (They are quite arbit in their arresting routines anyway).

Long Live the Dalai Lama . Who is the killer? CHINA Who is the butcher? CHINA PEOPLE OF THE WORLD _ SUPPORT us.

All of the girls there including me were wearing those sexy skinny jeans made most definetely in China , atleast the cheaper species that students like me can afford.

In January, I made a film (ok WE , a group of 5) made a film about bonded child labour in Kancheepuram. Those beautiful kancheepuram sarees that your mother wore to weddings was probably woven in a dingy little room by a child who had to work the next twenty years to repay the loan his parents took.

Nine hours a day, everyday, weaving mechanically so that rich women can look pretty in weddings and rich men can flirt with them .

So how can you have a conscience without being hypocritical ? Go to a free tibet protest but wear jeans made under unimaginable sweatshop conditions by workers?

Nike shoes- child labour

coke- uses water that farmers don’t get to grow food crops

Benneton-racism

add to the list.

but you know what i mean?

Hide in a jungle and wear no clothes and then have a clear conscience
?

China brew

I remember Lhasa.july 2007. Even then I saw it coming.Because everything was so quiet and so abnormally normal.

The Barkhor Square is the Tibetan heartland .It has the holiest temple for the Buddhists – The Jokhang. A man was playing a traditional instrument. A large crowd was gathered around him.The police came and shooed him away.They were afraid of crowds. But the man seemed used to being shooed away and the police and him laughed .

The Tibetans selling gorgeous handicrafts and jewellery would ensure me that I was buying the best ”Tibeti, no Chinese’they’d say.They’d smile a lot.

They’d say they loved India, were grateful to India.

But below the surface, anger and resentment was brewing and now, before the olympics is the best time to let it all out.

A problem is an important international issue only when it is not politically dangerous. And nobody wants to displease big bad China.