As this government insists on building walls between people, here are two walls worth mentioning.

The first belongs to an old hospital building in a Karnataka village. For eighty years it had watched people come and go, until one day it looked sadly at its cracked walls and sighed.

“Once,” it whispered, “people came rushing into me carrying the sick.”

“And now?” asked a passing cow, chewing thoughtfully.

“Now even the termites come walking slowly!”

But somebody looked beyond the cracks, the dust and the years weighing heavily on the building. Instead of pulling it down, they transformed it into a modern library with 3,600 books, computers and study facilities.

Suddenly, children began rushing through its doors again.

The old building straightened itself proudly.

“They are coming back!” it cried.

“Are they ill?” asked the cow.

“Some of them cannot spell properly.”

“Very serious,” said the cow.

Once, doctors had walked through those corridors carrying stethoscopes. Today, children walk through them carrying books. Once, medicines stood on the shelves. Today, stories, knowledge and dreams stand there instead. The building that once healed bodies has started healing ignorance.

And far away at Lord’s cricket ground in England, another wall was also being healed.

For years, the famous honours board carried the names of great cricketers. But there were spaces where women’s names had never appeared.

Then came Kranti Gaud.

During the historic women’s Test at Lord’s, the Indian bowler took five wickets and became the first woman cricketer to have her name placed on that celebrated honours board.

Kranti did not knock politely on history’s door.

She bowled at it!

One wicket fell, then another, and history began nervously adjusting its furniture. By the fifth wicket, the old male preserve had to find space for an Indian woman’s name.

How wonderfully these two stories speak to each other.

In Karnataka, an old wall that had nearly been forgotten now holds books for children. At Lord’s, an old wall that had forgotten women now holds Kranti’s name.

Both walls were incomplete.

One needed young minds. The other needed a woman’s achievement.

We are often too eager to demolish what appears old and too willing to preserve customs that should have been demolished long ago. The Karnataka building teaches us that an ageing structure can be given a new purpose. Kranti teaches us that an ageing tradition can be opened to new achievers.

A country does not progress merely by constructing taller buildings or building walls between communities. It progresses when forgotten buildings welcome children, famous walls welcome women, and closed doors begin opening.

Some walls divide people. Other walls carry shelves of knowledge. And a few walls wait silently for someone brave enough to write a new name upon them.

Let India demolish walls of hatred and build such walls of hope..!

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