Opening to Voices: sharing, suffering, selves...

Of all Ashis Nandy's amazing insights, here is one passage that means the world(s) to me:

"Openness to voices, familiar or strange, may well have to be the first criterion of the shared self which transcends nation-states, communities, perhaps even cultures themselves. A direct, sharp awareness of man-made suffering, a genuine empirical feel for it, may be the second."

I recently watched the film Bashu, the little stranger, and cannot even begin to express how much the story has been moving me. It speaks of shared selves, it hits your nerves so you cannot but be a little more acutely aware of suffering (and resilience and healing), it opens up voices and silences, it opens up the possibilities of strangeness and familiarity--it follows these realms as they fold into one another. A little stranger loses and finds a family.

Anyway, in the spirit of Nandy's quote, I opened a new list of links, "Voices" and posted the link to a small piece of Bashu's poetry, spoken in a voice i cannot and cannot and cannot understand, but that i can hear a little, understand a little, and that I feel drawn to listen to again and again. Some sacred part of myself, our shared self, feels its found a voice in his.

So, watch the clip, or better, watch the film and let me know how you feel, what you hear, ...