This week is the 1 year anniversary of the last released episode on Fit As A Fiddle! So much has happened since then, particularly the birth of little Jiya Baby in May 2023. Please excuse the coos and occasional screams of my child in the background during this season. I truly did my best to be a mom, wife, business owner, physical therapist, and podcaster.

This is a health and wellness podcast and health and wellness begins with basic human necessities. So many episodes on this show talk about a quality-of-life improving service including yoga and pilates, mental health, birth justice, mindfulness and meditation, physical therapy, acupuncture, orthotics, minimally invasive surgeries, orthodontics, or massage therapy. But we can’t really have any of that, not a single thing, unless we have fundamental human rights. We have the right to live in a world where we have a safe space to sleep, food to eat, clothes to wear, water to drink, and a roof over our heads. How can you imagine staying fit by doing a workout while you are being bombed, tortured, starved and displaced?

We are trapped in grief and immense loss throughout various ethnic and religious groups across the entire globe at the moment. I’ve held my daughter in my arms and ugly cried enough times in the last several months after witnessing genocides happening right on my phone. I recognize my immense amount of privilege when I can hold my child at night knowing she is safe in our little home in New Jersey.  It’s hard to move on sometimes, but I know I have to otherwise I am fully and entirely consumed by the grief. I sometimes even feel selfish to experience this grief when I am so privileged to be safe.

Political forces, leaders of the world, and big businesses all have monetary and religious interests which are currently destroying families all over the world. No matter what way you cut it, no matter what you have to say to justify it, no one has the right to take the life of even one single innocent person. To justify killing children is the most sinister thing ever, let alone doing it in a mass manner. In GAZA, SUDAN, CONGO, UKRAINE, and more, murder is happening on a mass scale.

I understand I’m going to lose a lot of followers and I’m beyond okay with that. I have only used my personal social media platforms to voice my opinions on the humanitarian conflicts in the world. In terms of politics, I have used Sneha Physical Therapy only to speak about reproductive justice. This relates to me personally as a woman and professionally as a pelvic floor physical therapist who treats pregnancy and postpartum. I don’t relate to the conflict particularly in Gaza. I am neither Palestinian nor Muslim. But I am human. 

I think I wanted to keep these worlds separate for fear of offending anyone. But this never was a game of who feels sorry for themselves and gets offended. This is black and white. This is good versus evil. This is right versus wrong. The only thing is, the evil side truly thinks what they are doing is right and are justifying it at all costs. Murder of innocent lives for ANY REASON, I repeat, ANY REASON, is pure evil. Those with only the blackest of the black hearts say they are defending “Their people” and that civilian casualties are expected or are being dramatized by the media. This is not a drama. These are real people with real lives.  

I pray for a world where we don’t kill each other because of what/who we pray to, the color of our skin, the language that we speak, or anything else that differentiates us. We all live in this world with the same fears and same needs. We all want to be loved and feel safe and every single person deserves that.