Drifting Through The Silence

By Dr. V. L. Rinawmi

On a golden summer or on a cool breeze winter,

Ask me not how I am

Do not think I am in a forlorn state,

Ask me not where I am

Do not deject my solitary state.

Unlike Padmini’s dilemma

With her loss of identity in entangled relationships,

I am congenial in my perfect imperfection,

‘Life,’ is not meant to be lived to perfection

But merely to be lived,

To travel where the road leads

Amidst it’s many bends, and ups and downs.

The pitiable story with no magic realism

Sumi, Kalyanin, Manorama and Aru

For years been a silent sufferer,

To the margins of silence

Let that silence be an emblem of “power,”

And with ‘Ardhnarishver’

The world may continue to grow.

And like Nanda Kaul where I go

I feel at ease in my lonesomeness,

I discover nature, I discover myself;

The clearest way into the cosmos

Is through this forest wilderness.

Alike the lonely Keats,

“My Solitude is sublime,”

And into the forest I go

To find the state of balance,

To lose my mind, find my soul

And revive myself.

Have I ever been lonely in a crowd?

Have I ever been perfectly discontent?

Have I ever been all alone despite the crowd?

No! Nay! Never! Said I,

Call me a ‘recluse’ maybe

But another heart I do not need

Thereof to dispense my ecstasy,

There is my society,

Where none intrudes,

Where I care for myself

And be grateful that I live to breathe.

The more solitary myself I am,

The more friendless,

The more unsustained I am,

In the rarest of privileges,

The freedom to be completely oneself

I celebrate the self!

By Dr. V. L. Rinawmi