Half naked tourists and the heritage of frozen facades

As the sun dissolved into the evening hues that enveloped the city, Aryan, a descendant of the city's oldest inhabitants and an urban tribal, leapt out of the window to feel the cool crosswind. His old house, nestled inconspicuously among the winding lanes, appeared like a hidden gem, seldom capturing anyone's attention. Aryan regarded it as a fortunate advantage in a city so deeply rooted in its heritage, a blessing in disguise bestowed upon him by his ancestors. He often expressed his gratitude to them for preserving the house's unassuming nature, safeguarding it from becoming a mere relic of social nostalgia.

During the daytime, when heritage enthusiasts strolled by, capturing photographs of inhabitants trapped in this heritage business, Aryan's house never enticed their affected gaze. He never had to feel like a caged gorilla or a chimpanzee, paraded before half-naked tourists. Throughout his thirty years in this lane, he could never comprehend those visitors' curious stares, the zooming lenses, or the feigned expressions.

Perhaps foreigners sought their version of ghetto tourism, something they might have only witnessed in third-world films. But what about Indians? What made this place different from the squalor of their own neighbourhoods in their cities?

"Aarya... come down, I'm heading to Derasaar," his mother's frail voice grew increasingly shrill each passing day, he pondered.

The dilapidated staircase was broken in multiple places, requiring careful steps. Aryan couldn't remember the last time his mother ascended those stairs. She had already left the house through an equally weathered door, a door that had witnessed around three or maybe even four centuries of history.

As the old woman, who had spent her entire life amidst these heritage curiosities, entered the frozen past through a four-hundred-year-old door, Aryan knew that Ramu Kaka, in his eighties, would be waiting at the next corner, longing for a glimpse of his unattainable old flame. Their daily exchange of twinkling eyes and pained smiles, Daya Kaki's habitual complaints about her joint pains, eighty-year-old Kalu Kaka's perpetual squabbles with his wife as he suspected her of having extramarital affairs at seventy, Suren Bhai's arguments with the neighbourhood kids over their cricket ball that inadvertently hit his bike, the bustling crowd at Biru Mausi's Chai Kitlee, engrossed in their animated conversations, Neeti Ben's constant worries about running out of water supply, Meenu Mausi's playful teasing of an eligible bachelor from the opposite house with a spontaneous strip tease whenever Aryan went to the terrace in the evening, Kirit Bhai's ceaseless coughing due to his terminal tuberculosis, and his wife Henal Ben's thunderous curses...

As Aryan closed the four-hundred-year-old door of his house, heritage stood frozen on the facade, resembling a failed marriage. Another group of half-naked Indian tourists passed that very door, searching for heritage in the darkness of his neighborhood.

when they are out in open to kill each other, the ladies retained patriarchy : the story of hindu iconography

Gathered around Anand, who always found himself in his storytelling element after a few drinks, we eagerly awaited another captivating tale from him. He began, "Have you heard the intriguing story of Shiva's family?"

Anand paused momentarily, lifting his nearly empty glass, before continuing, "Shiva, the father, bears a snake on his head, which also happens to be the devourer of his second son's loyal companion, Ganesha's rat. Shiva's wife, Parvathi, chooses a lion as her means of transport, a lion that consumes her husband's bull. Their eldest son, Karthikeya, the embodiment of ethics and morality, rides a peacock, a majestic creature that devours both his father's snake and his brother's rat. It's a captivating game of iconographic chess, where each family member keeps a pet that can consume another's, limiting their freedom of movement. However, there's an exception in this tale of Indian iconography - Mother Parvathi's lion remains untouched, a fearless creature that no one dares to challenge. It holds a special place in her heart."

As the chilly winter breeze seeped through the numerous cracks in the window, the room fell into silence, embracing the slumber of the outside world. Only the steady ticking of a grandfather clock persisted.

Gazing into my solemn eyes, Anand couldn't resist but continued, "You know what? In this intricate game of a Hindu family's iconography, where each member vies for the freedom of movement of the others..."

Pausing again to take another sip from his glass, he relished the moment, savouring the anticipation he had built, before resuming, "Here is where the story truly becomes captivating. While Mother Parvathi, as the keeper of the lion that restricts her husband's movement, attains great power, her husband, Shiva, is the Virat, the lord of destruction! He alone can unleash death and carry it upon his very form..."

Suddenly, the sky outside turned a fiery red, casting an eerie glow upon the room. The walls trembled and crumbled, revealing a scene of chaos. The once silent breeze transformed into a raging hurricane as if the elements were responding to the story's intensity.

In this cyclical game of time, the patriarchal world surrounding Anand repeated its birth. In this narrative, where the Vaishnavite cow was absent, Anand became the myth-maker, weaving tales in one of the oldest civilisations, where women had become the custodians of patriarchy.

 

story of a screen play

and I became...!

Morning mist is a flawless dream, spreading like watercolour across the landscape. Harish sat by the corridor, which led to the balcony that opened up to the boundless sky, as he poured his coffee into a gold-plated ceramic cup.

 He appreciated these misty mornings' fragmented reality of natural surrealism, providing an unrestricted state of mind. From the floor below, he could overhear the sound of Mallamma taking a shower. With her unbearable voice, she sang those raunchy Bollywood songs while bathing. The tragedy was that it sometimes lasted for more than an hour.

 Suddenly, the doorbell rang from behind and opening the door, he found a stranger standing beside the closed iron grills. From their appearance, Harish couldn't discern whether the person was male or female. They seemed like a man in the form of a female. The person politely asked in flawless English, "Sir, I sell Gods. Would you prefer one?"

At that moment, the iron grill transformed into the universe, the world became his corridor, the person became civilisation, and I became ...

Guantanamo bay

Your name is "X."

Your race is "Asian."

Your identity is that of an immigrant, which unfortunately also carries the label of a crime suspect alien.
Back in Asia, a proud parent shares the news with a stranger, a neighbour, and a relative, stating, "My child works in the United States."

The stranger, neighbour, and relative listen to this news with admiration. They return to their own homes and reprimand their children for not taking inspiration from "X," the successful immigrant in America.
 A whole generation lines up in schools, diligently learning vocabulary in the hopes of securing visas despite being perceived as potential criminals and living in fear.

The plot ends, and the story begins.

Inside the vast mall,

Within the exorbitantly priced multiplex,
On the silver screen,
Ordinary men and women of great America come together to save their president from aliens.
Trump, the American president, prevents the closure of Guantanamo Bay while the world remains focused on monetary matters, counting dollars.

capitalising communist manifesto:The death of a postmodern author.

"Do you know the tragedy of humanity? 

They are unable to see themselves. They require a reflector to validate their existence and their image. They come to know and understand themselves through mediums like images. Thus, image and the mediums of reflection become significant to them.

 They live for the image.

They survive based on the image.

They die for the image.

They kill for the image.

They construct spaces for the image.

They surrender for the image.

They emancipate for the image.

They are uncertain about themselves. 

They are plagued by self-doubt. 

They continually seek validation through images.

So, Mr Kant, you need to be corrected. Reason does not create morality. This tragedy, this self-doubt, and this reliance on a reflective medium or agency shape character. This pursuit of self-reflection through images gives birth to aesthetics, not your judgments."

As God gulped down his sixth peg of rum, he shouted at Immanuel Kant. Kant sat in a corner surrounded by empty bottles, each labelled with their capacity to intoxicate, representing different liquors and qualities yet capable of intoxicating generations. 

Karl Marx, who was drinking vodka from Gulag, remained silent.

These days, he found happiness as his oligarchic communist politburos had transformed into corporate agencies competing to exploit human labour for capitalist consumers. His Gulag supply was no longer considered immoral.

It had gained capitalist approval.

Capitalism determined morality and sold fairness cream alongside tanning cream to democratize aesthetics. They capitalized on the Communist Manifesto through post-modernism and its theoretical reasoning for the "death of authour."

Kant and Marx shared their drinks.

I bore the weight of God on my shoulders, a deceased postmodern author.

Opium traders

Hush! More of a plea than a command, it lingered in the air. We've been ensconced behind this forest canopy for three days now, awaiting the culmination of the operation. Rafeeq cradled his gun close, acutely aware of the impending final assault scheduled for tomorrow—three locations earmarked for bombing, two for attack. A shiver traversed his spine. Unveiling his opium pack, he sought solace in a granule. This marked his tenth intake today, each dose gradually erasing his anxieties.

Now, only exhilaration persisted. Opium morphed into courage. Opium transformed into jihad.

From their ivory tower, the cockroaches negotiated spirituality, nationalism, and the lucrative trade of weaponry. Their revelry had spanned epochs, evidenced by the wine glass stains that adorned their maps.

The faithful continued consuming opium. "Jihad through opium," they chanted.

"Try not to kill a Muslim," the commander advised. "How will I discern?" queried Rafeeq.

"Check the genital," replied the commander, callously. "But if it's a woman—"

"How does it matter? Rape her before shooting," the commander chuckled.

Cockroaches permeated every inch. Cockroaches infested the room. Cockroaches inundated the world. Cockroaches swarmed the sky.

In this congregation of cockroaches, the narrative found its way to print in a Nagpur press. Bound for Karachi, opium nestled within its pages, sealed with the imprimatur of China.

Waitress with top two buttons of the shirt left open and Trump as born again Christian white president

Moments before the water tank collapsed, Mariam, the old lady from our colony, had her last water droplet before her death. Jesus got up from her lap and asked Michelangelo for permission to go outside for coffee. Recently, he became fond of the Italian coffee they sell outside the cathedral. “How much for a coffee?” with his Asian accent, he asked the counter girl whose upper shirt buttons were open. Between her cleavages, there was a cross with his European portrait struck on a gold chain. “What coffee do you want…?” she laid out a long list of coffee varieties. “Black coffee”, he replied without looking at her face, which he found attractive. As she took the order, she left one more button untied on her shirt. Jesus stood there with his head hung. He suddenly felt tired as he settled down on a nearby table with four chairs among hundreds of crucified Jesus sculptures. It is almost six months since he has been modelling for Pieta. Now, as the water tank collapsed, he would not even be able to shower for the next few days. He took his first sip of coffee Then the sky turned purple He took his second sip of coffee Then the earth turned blue He took his third sip of coffee Then the minds turned pink He took his fourth sip of coffee Then Marry the Magdalene sat next to him He took his fifth sip of coffee Church took their swards He took his sixth sip of coffee The world became dark Among the dark, a slender hand felt his face. He wanted to sleep. He was tired

He slowly entered into the tight hug with those slender hands “Coffee.” with a firm voice, the waitress, with unbuttoned top buttons of her shirt, left the coffee on his table.

On television, Trump was elected as a Christian white president. Moments before the water tank collapsed, Mariam, the old lady from our colony, had her last water droplet before her death.

The endless crawl of a Syrian boy.

The eerie silence stuck on the walls like a moth among broken shadows from a setting sun. Except for the occasional crackling sound from somewhere in the building of a jarred window panel still hung on to its inches, the city remained silent.

He slowly crawled up to the window and looked outside. The broken buildings from last week's bombing on both sides of the road that led up to the horizon looked beautiful. Nothing left resembles the city that it was a week before.

First, they came chanting Islam and bombed everything. Then, the others came chasing Islam and bombed everything. Among the trails of their bombing, he remained smiling as the sight of fire, shouting and crying excited him as never before. He remembered his mother holding him under her body as the buildings crashed. He loved the warmth of her flesh that cushioned him from everything.

Weeks before, when they came, they shouted Allah's name while shooting his father as he pleaded with them in the name of Allah. They still called Allah's name when they took away both his sisters. They found no use for a mentally disabled boy, and so did his fat old mother. Since his mother was not waking up from her sleep, he drew pictures on the floor with the red colour coming out of his father.

He drew birds that fly, the sun that rises, mountains that stand and a river that flows. Among the trees, he also painted a house that had a family. Strangely, the red slowly turned into black. Since his mother did not wake up, he also slept with her.

Weeks after, some others came and bombed the city again. Strangely, this time, no one shouted Allah's name. All he could hear was the thud of bomb explosions and building collapses. He loved the sight of crashing buildings and fire among exploded people.

He got bored after a point and felt the first sign of hunger in his belly. He turned around to look at Mother. She would have had too much food without giving me, he thought. Look at her stomach! It has grown three times more than usual. With uncontrolled anger, he crawled back towards her—an endless crawl of a Syrian boy.

Sridhar Rao is erased

A few glasses lay broken from an unusual brawl a while ago. I sat at the corner table a few inches from a closed window. Whenever I come to this restaurant, I prefer to sit here. The haunting smell of fifty and odd years that no phenol could erase attracts me to this corner. An unassuming charm of loneliness lingers in this corner: between me and myself. It is also strange that despite my reluctance to engage with the rest of the world, I met almost all the who's who of the town in this corner table. In a city where everyone wants to escape from everyone, this corner table is the last resort, says my supplier, Sridhar Rao. Sridhar Rao is a fascinating man with his choice of words and phrases that he acquired from his extensive reading of Kannada literature. To make things better, I got him an unlimited membership in just books and in return, he doesn't allow anyone to occupy the corner table after six in the evening. Every day, he shows a new book that he is reading. I wonder how many books there are in Kannada that keep him occupied for the last three years!

Anyway, let us come back to our conversation about today's brawl. Today, as I walked in, I found Sridhar Rao sitting where I usually sit. He was without his uniform and seemed very serious. I walked up to him and wished his as usual.

He refused to acknowledge my greeting and instead showed me a letter. It was his resignation letter. In his beautiful handwriting, it looked almost like a drawing.

"…I do not have answers for many questions but have questions for all answers. Among the tables, when the city unravels in conversations of love, hate and friendship, I walk like an invisible ghost taking orders from anyone and every one of this city that I never belonged. Between the plastic smiles and courtesy greetings, I believed the city lives here- among the polished wooden tables, chairs and hungry souls. I lived here. Today, my son died. He probably was sixteen or seventeen. I never noticed his growth as I was busy serving people here. After I got the news today, I looked around my world. It was the same. Laughing people, hugging people and at arm's length among the tables, the place continued as if I did not exist for a system I take orders and serve. I cannot take this any longer.

I quit "

His letter shocked me. Without looking at my face, he asked, "Sir, can you check the grammar and edit this letter. This is my first or perhaps last piece of writing; I want it perfect".

I was in a dilemma: how would I convince him that my knowledge of English is much worse than his as it is an acquired language for me. He strangely assumed that everyone who came there was good in English! After that, I learned that I was the tenth person he had been serving for the last three years, and I turned him down for the same reason.

Looking deep into my eyes firmly, he asked, "Sir, what makes you the rich who can order me throughout my life?"

I hung my head without an answer. What happened next was a surprise. He got up and started breaking all the tables and chairs. Everybody rushed to the scene, and an ugly brawl ensued. It took almost ten minutes to bring him under control. He threw away his resignation letter as they dragged him out of the restaurant in front of thirty to forty scared, educated eyes.

After a while, when everything became normal, a new boy came to my table to take my order.

"What would you like to have sir?" he asked politely.

Sridhar Rao stands erased among the tables and chairs.

my bedroom looked beautiful than ever before

It’s raining outside.

I could see people getting drenched in that torrential rain through my window. 

Also, the loud noises of big trees coming down dominated the air. Nature was at its violent best. 

Under the concrete roof, in my home built environment, I started making paper boats of different sizes from the pages of “My Experiments with truth” by Mahatma Gandhi.

Some big

Some small

And some others remained normal...

As the paper boats piled up in front of me, I dropped them one after another into that torrential rainwater. I wished them to sail long enough to be out of my sight, but one after another, they all vanished into torrential rain

torn

And

destroyed

When the last ship vanished into that endless rain of violence, slowly, I shut my widows to those forgotten words of my experiments with truth and the violent rain outside. 

Under the LED light, my bedroom looked beautiful than ever before

the only letter with a meaning

As the southern wind wiped a few dusty pecks from my left cheeks, at the horizon, the pale sky looked like a perforated eyeball with a flawed gaze.

"You don't know…" said the lord while lifting his long brown gown borrowed from pages of human imagination.

"you don't know…" he continued.

Behind him, the hatch eggs crackled with the first sign of life among the cluttered railway steel structures. Beneath a crowd, they have waited for their destination train.

It's strange; we always believe destinations are decisive!

"…from the pages of mythology,

I mean, before you were born,

there were these words…

there were these possibilities,

but

Your forefathers chose this lonely, isolated letter,

the only letter with a meaning

"I"

to give you a meaning..."

Strangely his words were not audible in my loneliness. In front of me a billion isolations walked past my moments.

As the train slowly approached the platform, suddenly, there was a commotion near the track. Everyone was rushing towards the track. I saw a long gown with splattered blood spots between those rushing legs.

God, a friend of my friend's death…

As I walked past the doors, a shutter was waiting to close: FATE as usual

Your silence has been bothering me for some time now…”

God murmured from his usual favourite corner: next to Death, next to me and near the broken table. As the long corridor ends at his table, the stench of civilisation starts overpowering your imagination.

White and black

West and East

Theist and atheist

Communist and capitalist

And

Those billions of men and women whose lives stand erased without a trace: an act everyone loves to call evolution, and I call filth of generations.

“ I have no questions for your answers.” Gulping the leftover rum from the glass, God continued.

He took out the dead fruit fly from his mouth.

Perhaps it was drinking rum from God’s glass, and then it fell in it: it was half dead,

Why on earth did it have to fall in that glass?

Fate may.

I don’t know.

In Geetha, the Bible, the Koran and the Marxist holy book communist manifesto, every action in our lives has a consequence: the almighty fatalist fate

 “ I never knew to fly can drink rum,…” exclaimed Death.

“ Rum never knew the fly will fall …” God continued to murmur.

“ Rum is usually made from sugar cane juice...flies like sugar cane juice …”

The white sugar: the taste of our coffee breaks

And

the rum that relieves us from memories comes from the same cane juice.

Harvested among millions of debt-stricken-debt-stricken farmer suicides,

White sugar and brown rum always tasted sweet.

My smile is sweet.

Your dream is sweet

White sweet is a fate

The eternal consequence theory of everything

Religious

Marxist

Capitalist

And

Scientific.

Fortunately, I am drunk

God is drunk

So is the Death

The old shabby restaurant slowly turned into a mesmerising civilisation

Your questions have no answer in me

 Flies will always fall into it

Will get drunk and die …

God went to sleep. So is Death

As I walked past doors, a shutter was waiting to close: not FATE as usual, only a routine.

movements

The screech of a broken glass door woke me up from the dream.

Surrounding me were those broken pieces of vengeance- the broken pieces of my valued life possessions, old parents, my wife and only son… all are gone in seconds.

No one told me the bomb was coming to us, uninvited, of course, but only if someone from the government or the enemy… had said to me about this uninvited bomb, at least I could have stayed with my family. 

Now, since all of them had gone in the nick of a second, all I had was this dream... Just ten minutes before the blast, my father blessed my six-year-old son on his birthday that he would live another hundred years to see his children’s marriage…

Marriage, huh… when you talk about marriage, it reminds me of my marriage.

What a splendid affair that …the entire street was dancing that day. Glitter and glory that father was always fond of had let loose on that day. Moinudeen, my childhood friend, my all-time defender, was completely drunk on that day…the day when cows and calves were gracing on the sky, birds and trees were dancing on the ground, the day I got married to Nafeeza…strange day of my life, the beautiful day of my life….

On that day, my mother was in her most beautiful dress. The long golden dress with blue linings, the favourite colours of my father, the day my next-door neighbour proposed to marry her, my father….

Such was the day when all were happy. The most beautiful thing that happened to me that day was my son… That day, he came to wish us with glory and glitter…my son!

In the next room, he remains dead now…

my son...

my mother, father and Nafeeza are dead …only if they had told me about this uninvited bomb, I could have been with them, my lovely family….

Strange is the way this world!

A corpse cannot move. My dead body refuses to move!!!

Movements

Movements

Movements

Some movement makes bomb

Some movement makes notions

Some movement drops it in homes

Movements …

movements…

heartless movements…but My dead body refuses to move…

During supper time, the world had those visuals in the evening -our dead moments on TV with chicken lollipop advertisement moving under it…

God came out of the bunker ...

Death, his friend walked out of the room

MECHANICAL…………….sigh!!!

Silence crept in with the cold wind and wandered around the room like a murmuring monster. With two sparkling eyes and long-nailed fingers, it floated in the air as if I was going to get scared… funny cheap!!!

"stop it, you little idiot…."

"before you try to scare me, go and find out your tail, the long tail from those printed pages, the stories I usually read to my daughter…" I shouted

I am sure it did not occur to monsters that such a thing - a tail; exists for monsters in the human world. I was cunning to hide the fact that a tail matters the most for man's world.

Men and women and not precisely for the monster J

The poor monster started chasing its own back to find out its tail. Like a turbofan, it rotated in the air, changing the aerodynamic conditions of the room.

My daughter opened her physics books to understand the idea of rotation, chasing one's future ! Formulas failed to come out of that mechanical wheel…

Mechanical

Mechanical

Mechanical

Hmm interesting!

Dostoevsky's torn coat from crime and punishment once again kneeled in front of the prostitute for the whole sin of the world.

The tail-chasing monster lifted her hair like that eternal American savior- spider man who lifts those girls in New York, the ever-attacked city of imagination…

Mechanical

Mechanical

Mechanical

Finally, the gasping silence crumbled onto the floor like that old citadel of Eastern Europe. From those rubbles, my friend, the most significant play write of the century, who told the tales of tails, extended his euro-begging bowl with his frail WHITE hand…

From the gutter streets of Mumbai, the tail of the oldest civilization, a hungry child searched for a few coins with his BLACK little hand…unfortunately as beggars, they both had nothing to offer or take….

Mechanical

Mechanical

Mechanical

With a tearful eye, my daughter slowly wrote a farewell card to silence her lost friend, murdered by her father and his generation…

"Dear friend, all revolutions were agreements, Agreements between the power and powerful…there has never been a revolution…"

MECHA…………….sigh…

End of the Game....

"It's morning …!!!" said God with an unaccompanied soundtrack to justify his excitement.

The night before was horrible.

Nature was at her best tantrums yesterday with the storm, thundershower, and earth-shattering lightning.

Hiding behind the thin glass doors, God, our friend Death and I played the dice all night – the game we never knew.

The rules were made to break the rules.

The turns were turned down to make the turns.

Strange is how we played our game, lifeless life mirrored on the floor where the dice were thrown to roll. 

As if the birth of innocence, a silence fluttered between the dice and us. I could see the world shaken and shivering outside those transparent glass walls.

Street corners were all flooded.

Gutters were overflowing. 

And the stench of morality seeped through the glass walls..!

Dead rats who could not escape nature's wrath spread across the overflowing gutter.

Among those dead rats and along Gandhi's decayed corpse, blotted bodies of messiahs and prophets started floating.

The night was horrible.

Awaken by the yelling and shouting of God; death reluctantly opened his eyes to the glowing horizon.

Yes! It's morning! Finally, the end of the agony.

THE GAME IS OVER...

Struggling with my torn shoes, I slowly walked past the God

Then the Death- the Friend of God.

...waiting at the story

City went to sleep much earlier than the usual 11.30 sirens; I walked like a horse, hopping on the empty road where moonlight and florescent bulbs played the game of chess. Other than occasional vehicle screeches from a distant main road, the night was silent. I fell aimlessly, lying in the street, leading nowhere and everywhere.    But at the corner street, God must be waiting for me. I am already late for the promised weekend meeting. Before meeting God, Death will join me.

And there he is, the Death, lord of the forgotten future, standing next to the lamppost.

He looked like an angel of shadow among that chessboard of Light and dark. As usual he did not acknowledge my arrival but joined me in my walk towards God. Today, unlike other days, he did not speak a word afterwards.

Our friendship was a strange coincidence. It was long before I was born; if I am correct, it was much before that I imagined taking birth that one day, on the streets of Mumbai, I met him over a cup of tea. At first sight, I felt comfortable with him.

He was a silent spectacle among those million crowds of deaf and mute walking through the pavements of life and its time.

His sound was horrible; I could experience the immaculate wavelength built over time between us. So we became friends. God was his friend, and naturally, he also became my friend.

By the way, what was that I am talking about….?

It was not about my friendship, right?

These days, I lose track of my thinking quite often

Or was It about the night?

Or was it about the chess that Light played with us?

“Forget it…” meeting God is essential.

Unfortunately, at that moment, the road ahead of me started curling up like a tornado. The scared Death clung to my left hand, and I couldn’t move. The sky, moon, stars and everything started getting sucked up in that unexplainable.

Slowly but steadily, we entered those entanglements – myself and my friend Death.

There, we saw God is still waiting!

Among those unexplainable where first couldn’t giveaway for the seconds and Death, my friend and his friend God and myself didn’t exist…

We were waiting at THE STORY….

light of the shadow

Silence, as ever, paused in his eyes like a lost whisper and I could not hold my gaze anymore stuck to that blue night sky like him. 

This silence kills me.

“What have you decided …you are a prophet; you can’t always be silent like this. Outside your body, those throbbing lives seek their revenge; they want to part ways.

Truth can only be why we can split, part our ways and fight. You cannot surrender from that holy assignment….”

He remained silent. I don’t think he even realizes that I exist!

Perhaps he spoke to me only once after all these years of our acquaintance. As if he was planning my birth, he whispered in my ears, “Strange are the ways their prophetic galore; prophets often end up as faded shadows of their provincial past, the eroded dream.” 

Those words could not make any sense to me ( but I did not want it to make any sense at all, or else I feared I would be left with nothing to hand the generations to come as a mystery of prophecy.)

But today, as cockroaches started chewing the rotten Gods, it is time, I believe, the messiah of inconclusive imagination of perpetual dream, the prophet has to speak up. But the prophet was silent!

Fortunately, the cold breeze crackled under his shivering teeth, and the clumsy night filled with its brittle Sound. The Sound without words: the meaning of pain.

Slowly, the shadow of prophecy laid to ground, and beneath the dancing dead Gods emitted the dark: the light of the shadow...

Now, what is left for me to write?. I have nothing else to say.