Vishal Parmar
There are countries that wear crowns, and others that wear commandments. Some rule with flags. Others with silence.
The symbols change—the sound of the anthem, the color of the cloth—but the language of power rarely learns a new tongue. It only adjusts its accent. It always knows how to be obeyed.
Across oceans, across lifetimes, two ancient systems learned not just to survive, but to evolve.
One boarded ships and mapped the world in its image, planting flags like roots in soil that was never offered.
The other did not sail. It stayed still—and yet, spread farther than any compass could trace.
Generals didn’t draw its boundaries.
They were born with you.
In one place, your skin decides how high your voice can rise.
In another, it was the syllables of your name—spoken softly, almost guiltily—that defined the weight you carried in a room.
Both systems could disappear when necessary.
Both draped themselves in scripture.
Both convinced their followers they were chosen.
The empire came wearing buttons and treaties, but also—strangely—in lullabies and teacups.
It didn’t just conquer land. It colonized desire.
It offered trains, but no destinations.
Roads, but no direction.
Laws, but never justice.
And in another place—not far, but deep—an older order lay woven into the fabric of the everyday.
You couldn’t see it on a map, but you could feel it in who was allowed to learn—and who was taught to stay quiet.
In who was allowed to hold the water pot?
In who looked up—and who never dared to.
Systems like these—they don’t die.
They adapt.
They change clothes.
They learn to smile in meetings.
They never welcomed you—but still expected your silence at the door.
The table remains sacred.
The chair is always for someone else.
One system called itself enlightenment.
The other, sanctity.
One wrote textbooks.
The other rewrote memory.
One left by sea.
The other stayed behind, quietly building shrines to itself in plain view.
And when the ships did leave, they left behind more than monuments.
They left silence.
And blueprints.
They left minds that could no longer see themselves as whole.
And people—taught to forget where they had buried their own stories.
Even when the ink dried on new laws, and voices rose like birds remembering how to fly—there was still a hesitation.
A pause in the throat.
A question hiding behind the pride:
What do we do with power inherited from silence, when that silence was never innocent?
Some histories carved borders into land. Others drew invisible lines across lives.
One told you which lands were yours to take.
The other whispered which dreams were never meant for you.
One used flags.
The other used birth.
Both carried rules. Neither needed to explain.
One controlled how far your feet could travel.
The other decided how high your head was allowed to lift.
Both were ladders—but not the kind with equal steps.
These weren’t ladders you climbed.
These were ladders built into walls of palaces—already out of reach.
The bottom wasn’t a beginning—it was a sentence.
And those born at the top?
They were raised to believe they had climbed it themselves.
The empire’s ladder came wrapped in medals and scrolls.
It handed out civil posts, land titles, and census numbers.
It legalized inequality with elegance.
It spoke of reform with its left hand—while the right still clenched the whip.
The other ladder was older. And quieter.
It wore the scent of tradition.
It didn’t shout. It remembered.
Who could eat first. Who must wait.
Who could speak.
Who must disappear.
Its weapon wasn’t force—it was memory passed down like inheritance.
You didn’t need bars to build a prison.
Just a ritual.
Just a rule no one questioned.
And whenever someone tried to rise above it,
they were first warned with a smile,
then punished with silence,
then buried under words like purity, order, dignity.
The empire punished rebellion with exile, handcuffs, and fading into footnotes.
The other punished it with banishment from touch, from ritual, from breath itself.
But in both cases, pain fell in the same direction—always downward.
And privilege floated up, untouched.
Sometimes, the empire and the ladder nodded at each other.
Sometimes, they became one.
When the colonizer stepped ashore and saw a nation already split, it grinned.
There was no need to conquer.
The walls were already built.
It simply renamed them “order,” and vowed to preserve the peace.
And when it left, we cheered.
The flags changed.
The borders blurred.
But the ladder remained—untouched.
Because freedom is not a flag.
It is the absence of hierarchy.
And what good is independence when the same few still sit at the top?
There is a cruelty in pretending that a country is healed when its people still bleed in silence.
There is a lie in saying ‘We are equal now,’ when some are still denied dignity for being born in a syllable they never chose—but someone else decided must mean less.
Today, the map is ours—on paper.
The anthem is ours—on loudspeakers.
The Constitution hangs in courtrooms.
But somewhere in the back of a classroom, a child still sweeps the dust left behind by others.
Somewhere in a village, a groom still asks permission to sit tall on a horse.
Somewhere in a city, a surname still decides whether a door opens or closes.
These are not old tales.
These are new coordinates.
Just unprinted.
And so the ladder still stands.
Quiet.
Polished.
Worshipped.
People bow to it, not knowing it tightens every time they call it heritage.
The most dangerous prisons are not the ones with bars.
Just a ritual.
Just a rule no one questioned.
But what if we tipped the ladder sideways?
Not to climb, but to build a bridge?
What if we stopped asking, “How do I rise?”
And started asking, “Why must I?”
The empire is gone.
But its reflections remain—in courtrooms, in calendars, in classroom seating charts.
We carry both the map and the ladder inside us.
The map says where you’re allowed to go.
The ladder says who you’re allowed to be.
But something is shifting.
Quietly.
Fiercely.
Relentlessly.
Some refuse to climb.
Some refuse to kneel.
Some are walking off the page altogether—
away from maps,
away from ladders,
toward something that has no name yet.
And every time someone breaks a rule that was never from love to begin with,
a crack appears—not in them,
but in the walls pretending to protect us.
Power rarely leaves without leaving a shadow.
Even after the flags are folded, the maps redrawn, and the rulers renamed—something lingers.
Not in monuments or museums, but in posture.
In how people stand.
How they speak.
How they fall silent.
The storm passes, but the air remembers.
Yes—the empire left. That much is true.
Ships were packed. Documents signed. Speeches delivered beneath fluttering flags.
The crown bowed.
But it left behind a mirror.
And in that mirror, many no longer saw themselves as subjects…
They saw heirs.
What remained wasn’t just a language or a legal code—it was a shape.
A staircase carved into custom.
Etched into surnames.
Woven through rituals.
Folded into routines.
It wasn’t taught.
It was absorbed.
Not shouted.
Whispered.
Not enforced.
Inherited.
Those who had learned to climb long ago were ready.
They had the words.
They had the polish.
They had the ease of the well-placed.
The world called it merit.
But for them, it was simply home.
They say the chains were broken.
But not all chains make noise.
Some gleam.
Some are worn like medals.
For those at the lower steps, the climb was never about ambition.
It was about breathing.
Belonging.
Being allowed through the door.
Or even being seen at the door at all.
Then came change.
Not a revolution, but a crack.
A small window opened in a wall that had never known daylight.
But those at the top mistook it for an invasion.
They called it unfair.
They called it favoritism.
They called it reversal.
They forgot the ground had never been level.
In this new narrative, the ones who had always been first began to feel left behind—not because they were pushed,
but because others were finally allowed to run.
And then came the joke.
The polished line, slipped between teacups and microphones:
“In this country, to move forward, you must be backward.”
Laughter followed.
The host smiled.
The audience applauded.
No one paused to ask—
What does it mean to turn someone’s survival into a punchline?
To mock a ladder you were born halfway up, while others were buried beneath it?
Those who inherit advantage often mistake equity for threat.
They forget that merit without context is a myth.
They forget that silence is not fairness.
That peace is not justice.
That stillness does not mean healing.
And so they never ask the real question:
Not “Why are they rising?”
But “Why were they held down for so long?”
The structure migrated.
It folded itself into new resumes.
Settled inside polite questions.
“Where are you from?”
“What does your family do?”
In 2020, far from the villages where this script was written, a man walked into an office in California—hoping to be seen only as an engineer.
But someone recognized something in his name.
A name that didn’t open doors.
A name that became a whisper.
A reason.
A wall.
And the system—the polished, global, progressive system—looked away.
But this wasn’t new.
Only the zip code changed.
The skyline changed.
The rules stayed the same.
An ocean away, the old order had learned to wear new clothes.
It walked into emails.
Sat in boardrooms.
Murmured in spiritual gatherings.
It no longer shouted.
It smiled.
And when someone finally said, Enough—silence fought back.
But it wore a clever face—as always.
Not denial.
Distraction.
It twisted facts.
Softened pain.
Dressed itself in process.
Called justice an attack.
Hid behind the safest shield of all—belief.
Even now, as courtrooms and headlines echo with fragments of truth,
some try to rewrite the story.
Not to find clarity,
but to protect comfort.
They speak of freedom.
But only to protect their place inside the hierarchy.
They demand fairness.
But only for themselves.
Because they’re not defending the past.
They’re defending the power the past still gives them.
What happened in that office building wasn’t a rare event.
It was a mirror.
Not of one company, or one country—but of what happens
when history migrates
and calls itself culture.
And still—some of the loudest voices keep talking about empires.
About looted gold.
About borders.
About languages lost.
They name the conquerors who came from across the sea.
But rarely name the ones who sat beside them.
Who ate first.
Who never had to ask.
They don’t name the ones who built the nation,
but were never handed the keys.
Their outrage ends where their inheritance begins.
Because to name the whole truth would mean naming themselves.
It would mean asking not just what was stolen—but what was protected.
So they don’t say:
Let’s break the structure.
They say:
Let’s close the window.
They don’t say:
Let’s build a new house.
They say:
Why are they sitting in the front now?
This silence is not academic.
It is personal.
It is ritual.
It is sacred.
But sacred to whom?
What remains is a staircase dressed in tradition.
A gate disguised as merit.
A silence that hums through corridors and offices, courtrooms and classrooms—ancient and digital.
And still, some climb.
With names questioned.
With joy scrutinized.
With doors shut again and again.
They climb not because the ladder is just—but because they have no choice.
They’re not asking for shortcuts.
They’re asking for breath.
The structure was never meant to be questioned.
That’s how it survives.
It stands with quiet dignity, dressed in ritual and memory.
It doesn’t shout.
It doesn’t strike.
It simply waits—for you to fall in line.
It rewards the obedient with peace.
It punishes the curious with silence.
And it names that silence: tradition.
For thousands of years, across generations and fading empires, people complied.
Not out of belief,
but out of fear.
Because to question was to vanish.
To speak was to risk exile.
So they learned to live like shadows.
Quiet.
Careful.
Uninvited.
But even silence has a limit.
At first, it came like a tremble:
A boy who chose the front row.
A girl who refused to clean what others left behind.
A worker who filed a complaint.
A teacher who named the unspeakable.
A child who simply said: No.
And that tremble became a crack.
Small, at first.
Easily ignored.
But the cracks grew.
With every poem scribbled in a notebook.
With every name spoken with pride.
With every story remembered,
With every tradition broken
in the name of dignity.
Because even the oldest systems have soft spots.
They forget that memory can outlive fear.
That survival itself can be defiance.
That even the invisible can leave a mark deep enough to shake stone.
Yes—the structure still stands.
But it creaks now.
Not because it has fallen.
But because it is no longer unchallenged.
In cities.
In villages.
In digital spaces and dusty corners.
New voices rise.
Not with rage—but with rhythm.
With refusal.
With truth.
These are not revolutions of fire.
They are revolutions of breath.
A breath taken freely.
A breath once denied.
Now reclaimed.
Some ask,
“Why dig up old wounds?”
But this is not digging.
This is healing.
And healing asks for truth.
Not revenge.
Not guilt.
Just… truth.
Because no new house can be built on soil that still buries its people.
No country can be loved fully if we love only the version where no one bled.
And no heritage deserves worship if it survives by silencing others.
The cracks are not damage.
They are light breaking through.
They are classrooms where names are spoken without hesitation.
Offices where origins do not determine futures.
Stages where forbidden stories are no longer erased.
They are artists painting wounds once hidden.
Poets speaking in tongues once mocked.
In a land where many journalists wait for permission, a few still ask the question that could cost them everything.
Teachers teaching history—but not the voices that bled for dignity—only those who knelt for order.
They are quiet things.
Small things.
But they matter.
Because every time someone tells the truth and isn’t punished,
the silence loses power.
Every time someone rises without permission,
the structure bends—just slightly more.
Every time someone wears their name without shame,
the design reveals itself for what it has always been:
Not tradition.
But control.
And now, for the first time in a long time,
Control is no longer guaranteed
That is not the end of the system.
But it is the end of its comfort.
Not the end of the hierarchy.
But the end of its invisibility.
And in that delicate, trembling space—
between exposure and change—
new futures become possible.
Not perfect ones.
But honest ones.
Futures where dignity isn’t earned—it’s assumed.
Where history doesn’t skip pages.
Where silence is no longer survival…
but a choice.
~~~
Vishal Parmar holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the United Kingdom. Through poetic narrative and grounded reflection, he explores how unspoken hierarchies—both historical and inherited—travel across lands and generations.
