The Second Colour

          The life under training leaves little time to sit back and think, lest write about it. You end your day in your bed with a pillow against the wall, light a tiny flame on a candle and let the static of the room invade you. More often than not, there is soft music playing on the Alexa. Books are staring like skulls on the shelf. The nine brief months have left the room strangely foreign – a temporary space between the four walls – you spent too little time there to make it your own but it is the centre of your existence. The need for introspection often overtakes you but you feel it only in the form of exasperation and an evening of depression. You sigh audibly and some of that which is clogging your nerves washes away. Some good things shine. Running calms you. You often try to find someone to go on a run with but you mostly run alone. There is nothing new to that. But you are running more now, and faster. It is one of the things the Academy has done ...

I let a Leaf sit on me - it had floated down the window - where its silence offered me some relief from reality. For endless times I had pulled together the two fashions of my head but the distinction of life and dream was brought down rapidly. It had brought with it the part of me that - long hidden - emancipated -  to reality’s frown - but not without a lurch, and some part of me broke into that very known dance that balms the tired hearts who hear not that unknown music. The Leaf was yellow and dead and it flew on the breeze - but salved that slow death  that creates the rot within.  

             Margaret Attwood once concluded that “war is what happens when language fails”. David Diop further shows in his At Night All Blood Is Black that the language fails with respect to not just the foes but also the friends. In its short and succinct form, the book presents a scathing but mesmerising account of the battlefield and its multiple players. The novel is narrated by Alfa Ndiaye who comes from the French Senegal and is fighting on the French side against the Germans in a European World War II battlefield. His “more than brother”, Mademba Diop, was fighting alongside until he is killed. The circumstances of the latter’s death make Alfa question the sanity of war, its commanders (the alleged “lovers” of war), its soldiers, its morals and, of course, himself. The narration is so personal that the reader but fears intruding into Alfa’s privacy and thoughts.   In the initial few chapters, Alfa presents his recollection of Mad...

Hasn't life been going exceptionally well? The answer to the question is no. It ain't well at all. Maybe it is.  There definitely has been financial mobility. As compared to this time last year, I have an iPhone, an iPad Air, a smartwatch,  two  Alexa devices (all but the iPhone are gifts), a larger bank balance, some degree of social security ; I am eating better quality food and think less before spending on overpriced stuff .  When I think of buying clothes, I think more in terms of style and less in terms of price – price, really, has become secondary (at least in the initial part of the month) to needs, and needs are new and ever-increasing – unlike the past. I do not think in terms of “chalta hai”.  Today, when I could not find a piece to write on, and I wanted handcrafted paper, I immediately decided to buy a new journal. I hope I  am  happier than I was – and I have much greater confidence (and I do not know if that  stems  from money...

city lights in a city night sparkle like stars in a concrete sky. silent and subtle, showy, windows of curtained glass, tinted blue and red with gods and flowers, bulging halos round the city's shadows, shrouding a room from another and keeping a night outside. city lights are steady and silent and as adamant as the dead crickets and moths that dot  their thousand and thousand hues - and once and twice a man will peep out to look out, out at the city that's the same in all directions - simmering under its blood red sky. city lights create the empty streets dark and desolate by their absence - hairy mice scuttle in the corner lines with the hurry of a robber and an office-goer, a homeless man sleeps in a shadow and a dead man within him awaiting the lights for resurrection. city lights rule over the desert of rowdy buildings and towers and they zoom in and out with the party music and hubbub, the crowds of sulking citymen in a vitriolic air of hush and quiet going about on their...

You lit the match We kindled the fire. Burning since eternity. Note it down , I shout, Can't you see? It is feeding Thawing, gnawing Breeding. More fires and More fires. Turn around, look. Note it down , I shout - More is coming Nothing shall remain Neither you, sure. Nothing left To embellish, bejewel To paint, to hide To play music on To smile at To remember To live for. Eyes have melted Vitreous humour Evaporated off my face Ears are all  Full of crickets. Open your eyes! Look at it! Flaky skins, charred Bones brittle Hollow sockets Full of life. Everything exists. Can't run away! We began this! We killed us! No walking, running No legs No fight. Look at us Dying but alive Dancing, burning Eyes flowing down Ash in veins See us lose. Yours, mine Land, buildings, gods Grass, cows, children. Burning behind you. Not burning away. Wake up, please.