শূন্যতার মাপকাঠি

-


শূন্যতার কি কোনও মাপকাঠি আছে? How do we define emptiness? Is it the empty terrace being burnt to a crisp by the midsummer sun? Is it the smell of staleness in a rickety, late night bus bouncing along on a potholed road? Is it the hollowness in the eyes staring back from the mirror? Is it the ballpoint pen that breathes its last in the middle of a word that wasn’t meant to be written? Is it the boiling anger just at the base of the throat, an ancient emotion that’s actually grief? Or is it the sound of the screams that prick my consciousness and scar my dreams? একমুঠো বালির মতো; হাতের মুঠো খুললেই সব শূন্য। বুকের ভেতর একটা মনখারাপি অসুখ, ঠোঁটের কোনায় এক নিমেষের জীবন। Is all emptiness always the same, or am I more empty than you? Which is more empty – a beautiful envelope with venom inside, or a resounding laugh without a soul?

Location: Kolkata, West Bengal, India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

খুনসুটি

-
Image
এভাবেই শুরু , এভাবেই শেষ , খেলার মধ্যে খেলা কখনো ফ্রন্টফুট , কখনো ব্যাক , কখনো সাপের পেটে ঘুঁটি - সারা মাঠ জুড়ে , ঘাসের আদরে , পড়ে থাকে রোজ চার দেওয়ালে ঘেরা তোর - আমার ভালোলাগার খুনসুটি। বৃষ্টির দিনে একটু চা , আকাশে মাখা হাসি , খেলার নিয়মে মনের ভেতর ঝড়টা ঢেকে রাখি।
Read more

Without you

-
Image
Every morning, when my eyes open for the first time, when my brain wakes up to the inescapable reality of the today, when my lungs tell me that they’ve kept up the tiring work of keeping me alive, when the tips of my fingers are still tingling with the evanescence of dreams I had subconsciously reached out for, my heart goes thump-thump-thump, screaming into my ears that without you, every waking up is an exercise in predestined futility. And every night, just before my eyes close for the last time, when the gap between my toes has accumulated the imperceptible dust of the shattered day, when the waves of deliverance have touched the roots of my hair for the briefest of seconds, when the riotous desires from the omnipresent halls of collective humanity have lived and died in my sweat and blood, my heart goes thump-thump-thump, whispering into my disintegrating cognizance that without you, every going to sleep is a scream into the nothingness of oblivion.
Read more

Hansie - Movie Review

-
Image
Wessel Johannes Cronjé was a good fielder, a handy bowler, an average batman (which he more than made up for by sheer grit) – but, head & shoulders above all his other cricketing credentials, he was the consummate leader. Thorough, charismatic & inspirational, Hansie (essayed in the movie by the square-jawed Frank Rautenbach) was the most revered youth icon & a household name in South Africa right through his six years at the helm of the national cricket team. Cronjé, then Coach Bob Woolmer (played by Nick Lorentz) & then Chief Selector Peter Pollock (played by David Sherwood) took the prodigal Proteas from being a bunch of unsure, recently Apartheid-returned cricketers to almost becoming World Champions. The curse of a movie about a deceased much-loved-hero-turned-anti-hero is that whenever there is someone from the immediate family behind it, one invariably tends to question the authenticity of its truth-telling abilities, for personal bias is an ever-present t...
Read more