Who said I am white, I was always black,
Like those black rainbows across the barren mountains,
Sucking out the colours, from that bright Sun
Who said I am white, I was always black.
Evening shadows, polluted hearts
Drenching together in that ugly rain, wilderness
Floating clouds, meandering paths
Once I was there, with you.
I might change, you never know
Looking at those eyes of the new born child,
It’s so bright, washing away my pains
And let there be light, I said.
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All of a sudden, the sky went dark. Garden shadows disappeared. The view where a moment before all had been so bright and sunny was now dark and hazy. I could see that huge dragon standing in the middle of my city, his head bend down .Somewhere there was a cruel laughter in his eyes. He swayed north and south as if looking for something. I could see my mother looking up frightened and running towards my father. Within a split of a second, the dragon opened his mouth and threw a gigantic goblet of fire. It spread a bluish white light before dropping into the heart of the city. There was this splendid flash and all turned smoky. I could see a swirling cloud of dust and the roof of our home sagging dangerously. I tried hard to look for my parents but no where they could be seen in that smoke. As the dust slowly descended, I saw plenty of fire reservoirs filled to the brim with dead people who looked as though they have been boiled alive. I could see people fleeing Shikohima .They hopelessly run without any fixed direction. They looked like ghosts. Many were burnt, almost naked, with swollen faces, their skin peeled by the heat. Some were holding their intestines. There were these people with their face melting, their eyes have vanished leaving behind a tiny peephole to still see the calamity happening around, their noses like a piece of molten rubber still hanging there. I saw people near the university where Seigo studied crying for water and finding none, drank blood mixed water and died as water itself had turned into poison. I searched fanatically for my parents in my dream but it was futile
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I could speak to her on a day like this,
on a day when it rains as heavily.
You can open your heart on a day like this -
when you hear the clouds as the rain pours down
in gloom unbroken by light.
… Those words won’t be heard by anyone else;
there’s not a soul around.
Just us, face to face, in each other’s sorrow
sorrowing, as water streams without interruption;
it’s as if there’s no one else in the world
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I relaxed my legs on the rust coated pipe as it was already paining and stretched back supporting against the tank. Shantaram was scratching his groin over his shitty lungi looking interested in adding his part. ‘Sahib, you know our Kareem also saw such a cloud of smoke that night. It was not purple though but white, more like a ghoul swimming in the air in search of its prey. That night was a night of great cold for us. I could see Baburam, my son breathing cloud of mist while sitting outside in the damp ground smoking bidi. Soon the white fog of death encompassed us and all started coughing, frothing and vomiting. It bleached the eye-balls of our people into white beads. Few days after that dreadful night, I visited the local hospital in search of Chandu .A ghost I am now, I can go anywhere. You know Sahib, how much it pained to see them. Most of the known faces were blinded. I saw Chuniram the Pan-wala, as the doctor slowly opened the patti in his eyes, I shuddered. It was like a blob of sallow mass, nothing left, no eyeballs, nothing’
- BLACK RAINBOW, SMILING BUDDHA -Copyright@ Saptarshi Basu
