One of Abhay’s cousins is an artist. She not only splashes colours around but also keeps spreading thoughts. To her a thought is a thought and art is art irrespective of the medium. Recently she started a kind of campaign on Instagram under the title ‘healingwiththedove’, a peace initiative. She shared a template bearing the image of a dove and wanted us to express our feelings to heal the world. Since, Picasso catapulted the ordinary dove into a symbol of peace with his lithograph, “The dove of peace” and I was one of the few wordsmiths in a group of artists, I decided to look around for something which would be both impactful and have a multitude of colours. Two thoughts that came to my mind were the ongoing non binary week and Nelson Mandela day which was on 18th July. The Pride month has just gone by and I felt the multiple colours on the dove would be befitting. When nature allows all colours to come together, they turn into a beautiful rainbow. I feel peace can prevail if we embrace people for who they are and not for the colour, sexual orientation, religion or belief they stand for as long as it is good for the Humanity.
The post would remain incomplete if I do not mention Shubham’s contribution in adding colours to the plain dove.

Born, born, born to fly…
Don’t clip these wings
with what’s and why’s.
Born an eagle I sight high
A dove you say is equally good
I agree but am misunderstood
We both are fine in our feather
& can be happy together
But she is she and I am I
both equally good to live by
So let us love and let us live
I pray for us a little ease
Give us
peace, please!