Queen Bee (for Her)

(Source: Windmill- Claude Monet)

You are the smile it requires
Two days to bloom
I wait patiently with a glass of water, ask you
If you need anything else.
The rainbow pattern dazzles me with
its optimism and morning sky
I apologize if I have been short-sighted and dark
You are the Queen Bee,
you got workers to take care of.
If my caresses are all alike
You can raise your eyes, ask me
If I am okay-
I have lost sight of the hive.
A friend lent me your father’s number
I will request him to let you talk to me
I am a Collier’s son,
I cannot afford restaurants and exquisite gifts
When the millennium ends,
I will be around the next leap year in February.

© Chanchal K

(English Honours, 3rd Year)

Ghost

(Source: Misty Woods- Noreen Dayon)

Your lonely call haunts me
Like whispers through the trees,
Your breath lingers like fog
On a cold night; the smog
Upon the horizon.

Your touch, as cold as ice
Like long, white Arctic nights,
Your fingertips, like stone
That cuts me to the bone;
Just as sharp but painless.

Your eyes, black and hollow;
Truth I did not swallow,
Your skin, a pale dark glow
Of brightness just like snow.
I could not comprehend.

Your sweet, slow departure;
I was not over yet,
Your image was something
To which my fibres cling
On, to pacify me.

But now that I’ve tasted
Reality- wasted;
I’m falling down again.
I know you’re gone, my friend;
My lost soul feels at ease.

 

© Daniel Challam

(Economics Hons First Year)

Him

(Source: The Luteplayer- Caravaggio)

 

He could just lie in bed all day listening to songs, the meaning to which he does not understand. He would never talk to you, but would always want to sit beside you. He’s always around. He wouldn’t complain about anything, would cheer merrily one moment and cry unexpectedly the very next, and you will never know why. When you watch TV, he would just hold his ears close to the speakers and feel the vibrations. He would do the same with the fridge. He’d never sit idle. You’d either see him holding his mp3 player close to his ears and listening to the music, or outside on the porch, on his swing. He loves things that can move.

He only grows taller and taller, never growing  an inch of fat on his body. His ribs show through his skin, his legs long and growing, although slender; with the layer of flesh on his bones not even an inch thick, and veins showing. He wouldn’t walk but stagger, because his left foot isn’t in line with his right, and is tilted inward. He would laugh when you play with him, and cheer merrily and clap his hands when he is happy. He doesn’t speak, but one would always know what he’s feeling.

 

He is autistic.

 

We can all speak, talk in multi-languages, and yet, a number of times, keep our emotions buried deep inside. We have the ability to actually be able to choose what to say, and when to say it, because a sound mind can usually anticipate the consequences. He, on the other hand, wasn’t blessed with this ability. He is the most transparent human, his face itself giving everything away. Such, is the innocence of truthfulness.

One would say he isn’t blessed enough. True, he isn’t blessed with a good hearing, eyesight, or the ability to speak, but with things more special and rare. Innocence, unconditional love for everyone who is nice to him, and the same kind of love back; naivety, credulity, childishness, a pure heart and the cutest and sweetest way of hugging. Who’s winning the game now?

When one looks around themselves today, at the more common and clever humans that surround them, with fully grown, “sound” minds and bodies, one wishes they were more like him. I wish I were like him too; carefree, innocent, and pure. People like him are fighting their constant battles against their own physical selves, and us, the cleverer and plotting ones, are either struggling with our own intellectual evils, or involved in fighting with the rest of the humans.

Maybe if we were more like him, and less like the aggressive, intolerant and strategist humans we are becoming, the world would’ve been a better place.

 

© Nandini Malik

Math Honors (Second Year)

Are you Charlie Hebdo?

Are you Charlie Hebdo?

Because I am not.

Today I stand united with people who mourn the death of people who were brutally killed, I stand united with people who are fighting for the freedom of expression, I stand united with people who believe that violence is not the solution but I refuse to chant along with the rest of the world that ‘I am Charlie’ because I can’t bring myself to support what the cartoons depicted.

Some of Charlie Hebdo’s most offensive cartoons often represent racist stereotypes. While they are known to claim that they ‘attack everyone equally’, the cartoons they publish are intentionally anti-Islam’ and frequently sexist and homophobic. They were openly testing freedom of expression to its limit, it’s not like they didn’t know that these cartoons would hurt people’s faith, they did and that’s how they wanted it to be.

In a country like India, where a world renowned painter, M.F Hussain was hounded out of the country he loved because he made paintings that depicted the sexual union of Hindu Gods, how can people spout the words “Jes Suis Charlie-I am Charlie” like its nothing? Fighting for Freedom of Expression is different but defending people who create cartoons that publically humiliate people is wrong on so many levels.

Sudhir Dhar, an eminent cartoonist in a recent interview at a news channel said that for his generation of cartoonists R.K Laxman , Abid Surti, Mario Miranda spoofs on religion were an absolute taboo. There are a thousand things to draw and laugh at, it doesn’t have to be someone’s religious faith. The cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo were treading on dangerous ground and they knew it.

Even as the shocking tragedy of Charlie Hebdo is reported most eminent news channels and newspapers even American and British have chosen to blur out the images of the published cartoons or abstain from publishing them, such is the senseless depiction of humourless humour in them. The content is insensitive and can create unrest and hurt.

Of course what happened is terrible, violence is never the solution. By killing the cartoonists, the terrorists only killed the man but created an idea, the cartoonists working at a French magazine with moderate readership could never have dreamt that their works are searched, read and immortalised the world over.

A good British saying goes “your freedom ends where my nose begins”. Humour alleviates people of suffering , making them laugh. It does not make murderers and corpses.

That’s the thing, people don’t understand the fact that there is a fine line between freedom of Expression and anarchism, that people frequently cross without even caring.