Below the blue sky
Partly veiled by clouds
The storks hurried home
Below them the pigeons followed
And below them the city gleamed,
Sprawling and intimidating.
Such was the morning sight
Such was the afternoon
Eternal and impregnable.
Like one feels when all is rosy,
When one is sunk in oblivion.
When the colour altered,
The blue disappeared behind grey
And soon the grey behind black.
The city below surrendered its gleam
The anxious residents hurried home.
It was a downpour outside
It was a sight of splatters
On the glass now cleansed
The gloom and the splatters
Soon concealed the world outside
Slipping slowly into dusk
Turned the glass a mirror
In which the self was seen
Then the corner across the aisle
Where the heart of oblivion resides.
Delhi was once Chinglen’s ‘cradle of love’. With his student years over and the love that once comforted his stay has come to a tragic end, he is seized by a strong urge to flee the city. Run as far as he can from the memories of love. As a costly escape is beyond means, he returns to Manipur, a place long marred by protracted violence, a failed revolution, an engineered incessant political chaos, and already neck-deep in corruption. Perhaps to lick his wounds and hide with the beguiled sense. That the distance and the rich bizarre should shield him from the very memories sloshing thick inside him. His attempt to keep himself engaged as well as to make a meagre living lands him a shoddy journalist job and the opportunity to pursue a PhD at the state's only university. In the absence of his laidback editor and opportunistic professor, he teaches himself some degree of creative writing and dabbles in academia. As he moves further into the labyrinth, he learns the hard way that trying...
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