Dibyendu's WallScript

The gentleman sits with his feet pressed between his knees. A quadruped creature, one would think, crouched in slumber. Like those odd figures in advertisements for isabgol. Upon an oval-shaped commode sits the gentleman. His face is engulfed in a forest of black and white beard. Age, roughly sixty-five. Let us call him Vibhishan.   No need for further introduction. Entry there is forbidden. From afar, it is not easy to tell exactly what he is doing. Yet, peering furtively, one perceives: he sits with his knees apart, his face lowered between them, his stern expression suspended over the womb-shaped pan. From his nostrils the insects of stench flutter and buzz, for he spits repeatedly into the pan. Around him an aura of foul odor coils into being, traveling in and out through his nasal passage. He knows himself that rot has spread inside for many years. Its outcome — this half-dead, half-dormant state. Yet within the bathroom he feels secure, as if this private cell were his sanctu...

A beggar was born in this country of ours, among breathless lines of cedar trees; he leapt across the fences in rags and hunger, crying out—let the life of the beggar triumph!   Feet covered in dry leaves carried him onward, where the last gaze of the deer dissolved; he walked in pain like a ragged phantom, while the nostrils of starving tigers flared.   Once, beneath the dark sky’s spell, earth’s scent intoxicated the heavens; but days passed, nights passed— now the predators march at any cost.   There are reasons for every hunt, like the wings of greed’s unbridled birds; in the barren plain no hunter waits, only the beggar thirsts like a chataka for rain.   Jackal-eyes glimmer in the sal forests, searching sustenance with stubborn ears; at dawn the devil defeats him again, he wails empty-handed on the way home.   Through barbed wire the beggars crawl, flesh torn open upon the hunter’s fields; Baudhayana, perched upon the branches, declares—there is no place he...

From the temple she gathers flowers, while others have crossed the river, those meant to arrive have come ashore— but she remains forever, beside the stone deities that keep her company in heat and cold, in shifting seasons, through forests thundering with unseen voices, through the tremor of being itself.   Wrapped in the packet of offering, a coin slips into her hand— the shameless townsman climbs the steep path to the upper village. The restless youth, their hands aflame, bite their lips, their palms, thinking how sweet it would be to have the girl herself, while looting the priest’s pras ā d as though it were fate’s feast.   Every day she arranges worship— the offerings lined on the deity’s plate, then bathes in the broken riverbank, her wet sari folded in silent prayer. She sits with her hand upon her lap, lost in endless meditation. The priest consumes the food of gods, while powerless youths watch with eyes of hunger.   Boats sway with nameless passengers, dancing ...

The body flickers, fading slow, endurance knows not where to go.   In such a ward, behind joy’s veil, iron beds, rusted pipes exhale.   Oxygen tubes, corroded, frail, parched mouths lined in silent trail.   Beside me sufferers lie in rows, their breath a whisper, each one knows.   I weep in torrents, tears that climb, toward the sky beyond all time.   Yesterday they went away, to the theater where surgeons play—   Some returned with fragile breath, others vanished into death.   A window leans above my head, I turn, my gaze drifts far instead—   A football field, with shouts of cheer, blue sky rings, so bright, so clear.   But here I lie, with pain subdued, today by drugs my blood is wooed.   Tomorrow they cut—my fate’s unsure, shall I return, or breathe no more?   I have not seen the way back yet, between two worlds my soul is set.

The doings of people, their endless trade of days. On Sundays the crowds spill into the fields, moving from one bank of the river to the other, the routines of households flowing into the open air.   Madan Ghorui arrives at the market, a sack of cow-dung cakes upon his head, having walked four kilometers of mud and water, his dhoti knotted high above his knees.   Malati, again without a place to sit, wanders with her basket of flowers, today finding a space between Madan Ghorui and Rafiqul Mia’s sack of pointed gourds. The sun has only just risen; people begin to arrive.   Across the plains they come, to Bhola’s tea stall where customers crowd. Some gather to talk— farming news, politics of the land, stories of neighbors— whose daughter has fever, whose wife has gone to her father’s house, who left late today, who forgot to bring soaked rice from home.   Sometimes they laugh, sometimes they love without reason. Among them— fields tilled, houses tended, flocks of fish...