Mumbai Students Create Rangoli In Solidarity With The Orlando Shootings

June is celebrated as LGBTQ Pride Month and nothing more could spill the shades of grey into this worldwide celebrated time than the Orlando shooting of Sunday morning. Reported as the deadliest mass shooting in USA till date, a gun man opened fire into a gay nightclub in the city of Orlando, killing about 50 people and leaving 53 injured.

While #Prayfororlando and #Loveislove is now trending on all different kinds of social media platforms, solidarity has taken itself offline in various different forms as well. Shubham Mehrotra, who runs the 50 Shades Of Gay Campaign in India says, “What we saw in Orlando was the most visible manifestation of homophobia. Whether you see it or not, LGBTQ people are still attacked and discriminated against daily, and we all have the responsibility to stop that.”

As a response offline, people have been flowing into Orlando to donate blood despite its orthodox donation laws. Stonewall Inn -- the biggest symbol of LGBTQ American history has been the visiting corner of queer and ally mourners since Sunday morning and countries like Israel, France and Chile have shown their bit support through lighting candles and building tiny memorial spots across their cities.

Meanwhile, students of Mumbai have been humble enough to light candles around a rangoli, created by themselves, to cover the spilled shades of grey in Orlando. This solidarity does show that a hate crime like this one have an inherit capacity to travel miles and hit home and hit everybody, hard. As part of a recent column published in Youth Ki Awaaz, Rohini Banerjee, articulated her fear of being one of the victims. No matter how physically distant she was away from the shooting, the degree of it reinforces agitation of living in a world we like to call free. Even though India has strict gun laws, hate crimes like this have had the power to take different forms in our country, thus letting fear to prolong and grow, which makes small momentous such as this rangoli as important as any other.

Words: Karan Kaul