Dibyendu's WallScript

Water and ash, two sovereign ones, waving hands across opposing suns. I long for a cavern of endless night, far from the noise of human sight.   Between them flows a river’s speed, the lonely patience of a conch in need. The sky in swelling, restless flight, outgrows the summit of mortal height.   No laughter, no weeping shall remain, stone’s own joy shall silence pain. Horizons linger, but not too far, knowledge builds its boundary’s bar.   In union, in lust, desire turns spent, while intellect churns in its argument. I, a pilgrim of waters, open my eyes, to behold the stillness of eternal ash.   From these two entities—one to take, without revealing which path I make.

Through pale eyes I behold creation’s rage, nature unhinged, a tempest on stage. Even the wind bares teeth and claws, scattering haystacks, tearing down laws.   Rice fields drown, tiled roofs fall, clouds descend like armies tall. Floods play games upon the plain, ensnaring lives in rules of pain.   Then comes fire, the sun a brand, earth cracked open, dust for land. Green has withered, leaves are dry, on naked trees the vultures lie.   They count the days of famine’s reign, while crows lament in endless chain. When all that man required is done, the cuckoo’s chicks return home one by one.   Yet hollow hearts still gaze above, toward thirsty skies, for a spring of love.

When rural life itself is a battlefield—assailed by poverty, drought, and history’s sharpest arrows—it is astonishing to see, within it, the flowering of an artist whose spirit remains both defiant and luminous. Such is the life and work of Gosto Pakhira, the Medinipur-born painter, sculptor, and teacher, whose artistic journey stands as a testament to resilience and imagination.   To look at him is to wonder: what secret has etched such confidence upon his brow? Perhaps it was the storm and famine he faced as a boy of thirteen, which tempered him not into despair but into strength. Out of that crucible came the steel of character which still defines his art.   The Aesthetic of Struggle   Pakhira was born in 1936 in Mahatabpur, by the banks of the Kansai river, into the family of a poor farmer with seven siblings. From childhood he was drawn to drawing and craft, but life’s harsh contingencies never allowed him the luxury of pure devotion to art. Instead, he lived in the...