Illicit Illusion by Praniti Veerangana

The sun is a stanza in the sky – a well written first stanza of a poem, or a song. Perhaps, this is a first stanza that bears the misty wings of a dream. Perhaps, that’s why it rises and gently floats off the page, to settle in the azure folds of the sky . . .

They meet here every day, the few of them, and sit cross legged upon the sand. The crowd dips their toes into the sea, but they dip their fingertips, just to feel the ocean pulsating in their bones. One of them had claimed that the ocean that they collected upon their fingertips often bled into their poetry. And, when the moon enters the sky after the colorful chaos of the sunset mingles with the waves, they call it a bruise.

Only that bruise does not hurt as much – since the sky is numb with the anesthesia of stars.

They say that the earth is a mere heartbeat of the Universe, an iota of the infinity that surrounds us. Then, they talk about rainbows, rainbows that mount bullets and stumble through the sky. They ponder over shooting stars, over glimpses of nebulas, over the taste of the first raindrop and compare the taste of the first raindrop to the taste of the first snowflake. Then, they discuss their recent findings with sparkling eyes and say that the eighth raindrop which drops from the twilit sky, is always heavy with the scent of a season that is yet to come.

All of them are different. They are four women clad in light, cotton saris and two men, dressed in an odd combination of shorts, most often a neon shirt and dark-colored shorts, ranging from navy blue, to deep green, and at times, even black.

Some of them have lost a brother in a war, a father to community shooting, and some have had mothers who disappeared into the depths of a moonlit night, with a bag under their arms, never to return. They bear loss in the depths of their eyes, pulsating in the heart of what seems to be mere aqueous humor. They are different, with stories pushed into their gaze. They have different smiles as well, some have a dimpled cheek, others have a dimple chin.

Nevertheless, they are united by the blue and green tags that they wear – the women wear it pinned to their saris, the men wear it around their necks, almost like a school id card. This blue and green tag is their identity, the solitary thread that connects all of them together, connects their heart, their soul, their very being . . . .

National Rehab Centre

Patient #1 . . . .

Patient # 2 . . . .

Praniti Gulyani

Image by Truong Trinh from Pixabay