In Other Words

            For years, his father has been an enigma to him.            He can still recall, in the form of a few vague, obscure flashes, the day when out of nowhere their relatives and his father’s friends had helped him into the room. The person who had hitherto been the epitome of resilience, unfazed by any blow of any kind, even the one presently testing his emotional grit to the fullest, was now sitting on the sofa with his eyes looking down, as if enfeebled by some sudden shock. Indeed, it was sudden. A few minutes later, as two of his aunts took him to another room, evidently to steer his thoughts ways from the apparently baffling state his father was in, he tried to know the reason behind it. He knew all too well that his mother had been in the hospital for the last two weeks- but was it a cause for concern? He didn’t know back then the exact significance of the word ‘stable’ being uttered by his f...

                 Sometimes, he felt as if he were in a dream. The road, contrary to its usual cacophonous and dusty demeanour symptomatic of a bustling medley of vehicles (and voices), wore a silent, almost sepulchral look. No horns being blown, no smoke to obscure the surroundings. Looking above, he could soak in the resplendence of the blue sky interspersed with white clouds as birds criss-crossed it with a revelous frenzy. The global crisis, he realized, had fortuitously wrapped the physical world with a veneer of serenity.              It was in class nine that he had first met the word ‘dichotomy’. While it had expectedly eluded his comprehensive ability, he was quick to seek the help of the English teacher, who, besides explaining its meaning, had added a supplementary, yet significant advice- ‘there’s nothing compared to a practical experience when it comes to gr...

              Undeterred by the unceasing drizzle and the gusty winds swirling around, plumes of smoke billowed up into the air. He knew the source of this. He did not know about most of the things transpiring beyond the confines of his cell, or the jail he was housed in, but he knew this all too well. When the smoke stopped, he loosened the clutch of his hands on the rods patterning the sky visible through the window, averted his gaze from the burning site, and slouched on the floor. A new inmate would come soon.               Piercing the pall of silence, the door banged open. The floor-head dragged a man in by his collar- rickety in appearance and etched with a mark of surrender on the face. ‘When will his turn come?’ -he asked the head, pointing to the new entrant. ‘Next week’- came the swift reply in a tone implicitly warning him to keep mum. He looked down and almost immediatel...

                It’s like a no-looking-back journey through a tunnel- long, gloomy and enervating. But its’ not without hope; rather that is precisely what perennially spurs you on. You cannot miss it-the blinding light at the opening, injecting that much-needed zest which pushes you forward when merely trudging forward seems like an insurmountable job. Thus, you move on, trying to ease all difficulties by reminding yourself that emergence out of the tunnel, and into the light, would not only elicit a sense of fulfillment emanating from completion of a much-awaited task, but also embrace you with a sense of relief whose enormity cannot quite be measured. But what if you are stopped right at the opening. You can clearly see (and feel ) the light, in fact you’ve already put the seal of finality on your existence in that impending realm, but you cannot go any further, neither can you go back.         ...