An ode to social media
Oh what is this that befall upon me!
I know you not,
Yet acceptance I long from thee.
Multiple selfies from dawn to dusk,
The facade, the illusion long gone from reality,
Daily I wake in hope of a better tomorrow,
Only that at the end of the day,
Before my mind fades away into a world of mine where dreams overtake,
That I realise, a bound slave, all for your sake.
Oh what is this that befall upon me,
Before the Sun lays her hand on me,
Before nature cries out to me,
I see you standing there judging me,
For the day that had passed off into the abyss,
Yet you stand there will bloodshot eyes,
I am never free from the acceptance
I long from thee.
You tempt me with one hand,
With the other, my heart stabbed to the core,
I cry out in anger, yet all you say is,
Lets hope for a better day.
What is this that befall upon me?
Do you not love my imagination?
An illusion of my life, far from reality
How long can I wear this mask?
Its thorns are penetrating my very existence.
Despite your disregard for the life in me,
A slave to you, I will always be
What is this that befall upon us?
No child, no age, no gender free,
From the grip of social media.
A simple like, comment is all I need,
In spite of the hollowness within me,
The anguished heart, the lost soul,
The humanity gone into the abyss,
I would rather take a picture than help a brother in need,
For with every share or like I give,
A rupee is apparently donated for the lost cause of society.
Yet I think not of the homeless child walking beside me.
Selfish I definitely am not, for I am using a paper straw and you see that on my social media
Yet, everytime I go to the store, I curse the man charging me for plastic.
What is this that become of us?
Are we blinded by the needs of those around us,
Let the dying man be filmed on his death bed
At least he will be famous in his last breath
Let this not become of us, we judge not for
ourselves but what people tell us
Let there not only be freedom of speech of the elite.
But let everyman think for himself
Let not the chains of social media imprison you to a life of a eutopia in pretence.
Ininaki Lyngdoh
Dissection
A baby butterfly came flying
On the ‘Durun Flower’
And never desired for ‘Jayanty Tara’.
You longed for youngish red Dragon fly
When we rested at old crested peepal tree.
Let’s go to the heights, to ‘Bahoi Tuka’
In the attention of music greened the
Front hill and nests a tomb of dry leaves.
Fetching a piece of sky to you as I endear you.
We sense the moon today.
Swimming amidst clouds
Touching the moon at the end
At the head of the hill..
Climbing on the same climber
Below us our firmament.
We divide oxygen for each other.
Let out the old fable once more
Who triumphed?
Who lost?
Is this hill or cyclone?
Practicing to erase immatured
Dream much.
I fear Newton as it is tough to
Flow to the height.
Oh ho! Aandhar rolling down
Is not so easy, rest at the chest
Of Green Rock.
Oh ‘Sandhya’ we never released
The same breath.
Lakshyajit Borah
Translated by Parthajit Borah
The crows
Every night they rattled roof tops
and in Gauhati their mournful cawing
nibbled at my dreams
Earthly wonder, theirs was a raiment
of dark dark even as the moon winced
to lessen a bit of the black
and merge them with dark nights.
Their sullen mourning sent a shriek
in the air and in Shillong’s rains
they pranced madly in their wetness.
Ananya Guha