My night and I

Since long, I am colored yellow;

Hanging from the sun, I make a girl smile

And her black eyes remind me of night

For years I have been so busy,

I have been to places at the same time,

Here and there, grey and white,

I think I have lost myself

In her hope and her celebration

I hate when the Sun shines for long,

My tired eyes have always looked

For the lady who shines in black;

My head aches and I need her shoulder

And I weep bright

But yet she is nowhere to see

I have seen bleeding knees and wet eyes

And leaves going dry

And so I seek for my night

To make my sorrows blind

-          Shouvik Rryan Roy

See you soon...

She had bright eyes, which could speak volumes, which could reflect a sense of pure affection, care, love and wisdom. She often used to take me away from Ma to a place which I hated initially, but started to love gradually.  She would make me sit on her lap, beneath the dim orange light bulb on a cold cemented surface and melodise my soul with her enthralling voice. My grandma said she sounds horrible but I found her no less than a nightingale.

She always would sing me songs of self-belief and hope, “Amra korbo joy, amra korbo joy akdin” (We shall overcome someday) and “purano shei diner kotha” (good old days) were one of her favourites and mine too. Every time she sang she filled life in those songs, gave it a new meaning every day. I preferred her over the television, as it never pulled me closer to its heart, hug me and make me feel heaven as she used to, although it sang the same songs. I always used to ask her one question “Mamuni, when is the war going to end?” and she would answer with a smile “Soon”. She was different, than the rest, than everyone.

She begun to move away from me as we both grew older, the only difference was she grew wrinkles and I grew more skin. The so called daily life tore us apart.

 This time when I came to meet her, I saw her sitting on the same place and singing the same songs. But I found I was too heavy for her laps; they have grown too weak to carry me. She welcomed me with a smile, the smile which masked loneliness and pain. I asked her to show me the reports; she refused at first but finally showed; now the mask was down. I asked in nervousness with my eyes on her “This is going to get better, this will end wouldn’t it?” tears rolled down my eyes. She wiped it off and answered “Soon”, she wore a smile as I looked at her…age didn’t snatch away her beauty. “Never lose hope my child, always be strong” she said holding my right hand, “everything happens for good, I have a journey to make, I will see you soon son”. I asked her about the journey in complexion but she refused to say, but said I will come to know of it soon, I smiled. While I left, she asked me not to look back, I kissed her cheeks and walked away, I didn’t look back.

I doubted her when she uttered the word “soon”, always have, until my parents got a call at 8 PM of the night. They seemed to be in a hurry after that, they just told me it’s related to Mamuni. I gathered my strength, I was doing what she had asked me or rather told me to do, “Be strong” I said to myself.

We reached there by 8.45, and all we could hear was the croaking of frogs coming from the backyard, no songs this time, the veranda was alone; it was all silent.

As I stepped in I saw people sitting on the floor with their heads down, some of the heads looked familiar. But as I advanced I saw more people surrounding a lady who was lying on the floor and wrapped a brown sari around her, she was my Mamuni. I kneeled down, I was stunned. I could hear cries from behind, but I didn’t look back. My eyes were not ready to move from the smile that she still wore, they were intact, both of them.

Now I believed the word “soon”, she was always right. It ended; she is free, from all her pain. Now I came to know the journey she was talking about. I didn’t cry, as I thought not to be that selfish. I pushed back my tears, bend down and with a broken smile kissed her cold cheeks and said

“I will see you soon Mamuni, goodbye for now”

-SHOUVIK rryan ROY

The colors of life- A RAINBOW

Oh! Nissan, the colours form the rainbow, colours- a part of this mysterious life...seven they are, like the seven gods...one of the brinjal, the other deep as sky, the ocean comes after nicely, the leaves surely comes above it, and then it grows old, then comes the colour that flows inside you, the blood, but the saints of India come under it...

It’s a painting, a beautiful one, painted by the heavens even now, to console us that the world is still being watched.

Who said you can’t see? Colours don’t need eyes, it needs feel. Forbid those who say you see only black, as I know you can see all colours, rainbow is just a part.

Rainbow is all within you. It’s a magic, it’s a sign of a good dream knocking your soul, it’s our lives being pictured in the skies, to remind us we still live whatever may come and go, the colours as they name it, are nothing but elements of our lives, they don’t need a view from the eyes but the heart, they need a sense of infinite perception, and an arousing touch...

White got the right to be the mother of the seven colours, it creates them, it’s the atrocity your mother was reluctant to wear, and it’s the divinity the lovely moon enjoys. It covers the sky when the light pierces the dews; it’s the purity every politician fears but still wraps it.

The sign of fire, it forms the upper layer, like the engine of a train, whose whistle wakes you up every dawn. Have you ever got angry? Have you ever had burst in rage? Yes you did I remember, when you do, it turns red, it’s one of the rainbow, it’s the one which burned your little finger once, and it’s the one which made you cry, when you fell down and thought your knee is melting. It is the sun, and the skies love to wear it every dawn. It was red, it is red.

 You remember, when your beloved mother used to get you those pulpy fruits from the market, the way you savored them, ever imagined?  Ever thought that it could support your anger? Support it by nicely coming under.  It was orange and ever will be. You can call her the sister of red, they are born together, and they are somehow parallel, somehow related.

When I had jaundice, I suffered horribly, my face and my whole body turned pale, I turned yellow; you would touch me and say I am not well, say I have turned fragile. Now if you could make me lie beneath the oranges, I could turn beautiful, I form the third layer, I form a part, and I am yellow. The juice you had this morning, it’s made of the fruit which I once smashed on your head, and it flowed down nicely onto your lips, you told it was sweet, it tasted like heaven, Nissan, it was of yellow, it was all yellow. It's the dead leaf, which waits to get merged with the earth. It's the flower, the rose, the aroma Misha once gifted you, saying she is with you forever.

 Green comes then sweetly, bewildered? It gives us life, it gives us air, it is a colour, and it is green. It is the identity of all the non speaking leaves, when they are young. It comes after yellow, it tells her not to forget that she was once green.  It’s the one which you feel when you walk on the grassland every morning. It’s the one that suffers the most now Nissan, it’s the one dying; it’s an angel with half burned wings...

Taste the sea and you would feel salt, close your eyes and you could see blue, the colour born cool, and the colour, which the sky reflects, which the birds feel when they fly. Blue succeeds yellow, just like a sunflower being thrown away in the sea, hoping a dolphin would grab it, so as to keep her from extinction. Kiss the pigeon next time and it could tell you how blue is, it could tell you that the moon, the breeze exactly feels blue, feels cool when she makes her young ones sleep in the nest every night...

Then Blue gives birth to a child, she would be named Indigo. She is born bold and lovely; just like her mother. In the rainbow, she nicely seats on her lap, and blue adores her, and tells her not to grow on earth, so as to stop the Indians being browbeaten by the Englishmen.

Violet, tells them not to leave her alone, she would love to bear the seven colours, and she would recreate the beauty of the illusion called rainbow, and she makes it shine. She could be found anywhere, from the brinjal farm to the deepest of imagination.

Life is a blend of colours Nissan, and so is the rainbow; a sign of life in the sky. It comes and goes without notice, it gives joy, it clears pain, it tells you what you are, its everything you are made of, it’s an aroma, it’s hope, it’s struggle, it’s success, it’s a drop of tear, it’s the stretch of your lips, it’s everything that is around you Nissan, it's a feeling, a sensation, an illusion. It’s the enchantment everyone hopes for, in their lives. A bit of rainbow in life and it's all set. You just need to see them with your heart Nissan...and I know you can see it... I know.

-        SHOUVIK rryan ROY

The World- 2022

The future is unpredictable and uncertain. Life could turn up into anything in the future, whatever may be the time span, whether ten or fifteen years. But given the topic, I would like to cover many aspects of our daily lives and surroundings that might perhaps change radically in the next decade or so.

To go with technology at first, I would like to mention that advancement in this particular field is very much needed to enhance our day to day life and the economy of a particular nation; all this rudiments are co-related to each other. 

To be honest and frank, I can see a major change in the field of technology and its impact on people. Now whether the impact and the change would be on a positive or on a negative side, that I am really unsure about; it especially depends on the mentality of the generation that we are going to have in the near future. The change might turn out to be a disaster and the impact might turn out to be a shock.

Now as I see the changes coming up at this time, I can sense that inventors and developers are inventing and developing such things which our grandparents never thought would come up in this era.

 Palmtop is a very recent and strong example. As we see the laptops just killing the need of desktops nowadays, within few years’ or so the palmtops would take over the laptops like a whoosh, and I would be using it even when my bathroom is stinking as I am shitting, my food is burning when I am cooking, and my plants are dying when I am gardening.  

Now as they are also developing robots recently (especially the Japanese), I think within few years they are going to outdate the need of hands and legs too. Now there would be some kind of a machine or a robot that might just put the spoon filled with cheese and curry in my mouth and utter “now your hands are free from tyranny” Oh god! What my hands are for then? It’s just like a smack on the face of god and cursing him for giving us hands. Then, there could be another robot that will jog for us and in turn we will burn calories in his place, the use of legs also gone. I can just see people getting overweight within the next decade if they get obsessed with the world of upcoming robots.

Albeit robots may have many good things in them too, as they may be used in defence purposes, or taking out rescue operations in danger areas, or may also be used against terrorism, which is indeed a very important task, but, I personally feel that they should be owned mainly by the government of a nation and not personalised in a major basis as we don’t know with what mentality and motives people may come up in the future.

There are also many technologies in the list that may come up to blow up our minds. Have you ever imagined of closing your eyes and be able to watch live television? Yes! This thing is possible in the next ten years or so. Television inside your eyelids, isn’t that terrific? Now, you can see how the technologies that we are experiencing have a huge chance of getting updated in the near future. Another example is that of cooking, a special micro-oven coming up that would only ask you to put all the raw ingredients inside and just type the dish you want to make; within a minute your dish is ready, awesome that is. We can also have portable wings, with which we can fly to anywhere we want, and this particular technology would be owned by the airlines, for this change we could also experience rains of tears of the Right Brothers falling from the heaven as their invention could be fading away in the next decade or so.  The concept of telepathy also may come up in a highlighted manner, through which I can get connected to anyone I know and want to talk to, and know his whereabouts. If developed, I can really see this technology screwing up the mobile companies and the teenage life in the near future. Though it may also be used by the American government to know where their dear Osama bin laden is partying right now. Around 2022, we can also find aliens sitting by our side and enjoying a cup of tea with us. The NASA may also come up with the discovery of the clone of earth, to be precise another planet similar to earth in every aspect. All these sounds awesome, though it may sound imaginary, or a bit illogical on the other side taking the fact that the time span is only ten years, and it’s too less to have these kinds of developments.

The ideas and technologies that may come up are never ending and infinite, but it really depends on the mentality of the next decade as how they execute it. How it is going to help the common people. I would also like to foresee the short scale industries turning into large scale industries and bringing up more profits and boosting the economy of India. Though, considered next to impossible, it might happen that some force could really execute the plan of “GARIBI HATAO” and erase poverty from India, the education budget getting a boost, all Indians getting educated, and India finally turning out to be a super power. I can also see the African nations coming out of the war like environments and living a life of peace and prosperity. Yes, this may happen in the next ten years or so, dreams do come true, but only when they are driven by positivity and clarity.

 I, personally wish, hope and dream that the life and the world in the next ten years be full of prosperity and positivity. Regardless of the fact that we might be having bunch of negative forces bugging us in the future, we should always remember that negativity can overtake positivity in no way and never if our hearts our pure and minds are focussed.