Dibyendu's WallScript

Silent, secret, the shadowed light of an unknown maiden drifts into the mist-wrapped yellow dawn, her hands scattering coloured dreams, clasping them close in sudden passion. Behind her lies the weary yesterday, blue scraped raw from a lover’s breast, time torn and hollowed, trembling with frail humanity, while upon the world’s unsheathed sword the body falls in bloodied fragments. When the hour is spent, when all must cease, the beginning and the end are but one.   Yet before that last stillness, she returns, bearing a thousand dying hopes— hopes that yearned only for death. Rootless leaves scatter in the winter’s touch, tattered cold, on the edge of spring, burdened with storm. The frozen floes stir: you came— through abysses of sleep, unknown maiden, adrift upon the stream of unmeasured time, to the heart that remembers nothing.   Your skin, layer upon layer, shines with doubtful glances, a mind steeped in disbelief— and yet, in the luxury of new-born war, you gazed upon it...

In this blistering season, when men hardened by suffering release molten fire from their smooth dark skins, Sukhiram lies upon the wooden cot embracing his middle-aged wife. Defying every law of summer heat, their two bodies remain strangely cold—cold like ice itself. As if not a single fragment of the millions of thoughts in this vast universe could find shelter in their brains. Even the hostile forces that normally prowl in the crevices of life never surge here. Such is their peaceful and simple coexistence—like two sin-weary children asleep beside each other. And truly, those who in shape are children were lying too—around the back of Sukhiram’s beloved wife, Kunti. Just beneath the cot, separated from the earth by a thin quilt. Three in number. Between nine and one and a half years of age. In their thin skeletal bodies the bellies bulged monstrously forward. The youngest still clung to his mother’s breast. Apart from feeding and sleep, he did nothing but cry. But now, all their bo...

Wrinkles on the brow mark the enchanted paths— those that strayed through countless errors, etched now in the layers of age.   The shadow-path walks alone, while bodies fell upon the roads of illusion, amid the revelry of gods. The severed head of a sacrificial goat, its glassy eyes clear as truth, prepares the stage of life, directs the course of tomorrow.   Venus still shapes white coral, or pearls— yet false dreams lead astray into mirage. The furrows of fate shall one day claim their honor.   Look straight into the eye, lift the finger, ask: does light, does strength still dwell on this earth of blessings and lust?   If night rains, dawn shall be clear. In the land of scandals and peril someday Abhimanyu shall rise— but step slowly, from front to back, for the chakravyuh awaits on every side.

Corrode my conscience, O Lord— let my throat spit only scorn. Wrap me in armor of rage, teach me to face myself bare, never to turn back from the path of truth.   No shame, no fear— only the rag pressed hard against a face of fury, only survival in anger, waiting for the moment.   Calm as a kite on the terrace, in wrath, in rebellion, I will one day unfurl my wings, strike at the monuments of lies, tear away their pale blessing— thirsting only, for revenge.

Impoverished scribes of history weave foaming seas of literature, yet the creator they invoke is nothing but formless dust.   No fear— our history is drenched in fevered tales, yet who will settle the debt of those ancient dwellers, whose lives remain untold?   Those who long to narrate seek only wealth, tasting the coin instead of truth, buying and selling the flavor of your being.   But on this path understanding never blooms. Chronicles written half-heard, half-known, fuse into false unity, wasting years in vain.   One day— our houses filled with wasted words, literature and history alike will stand stripped bare, and human nature itself will turn heartless.

If you wish to flee, then flee far, beyond the chaos of justice, for standing tall is harder than bending to silence. Escape glitters, tempting— while in Kurukshetra I remain, alone, Duryodhana, reciting rules, instincts, while vultures with ancient eyes negotiate in shadows, trading dignity for gain.   Go, if you must— mask your guilty face with a god’s stolen robe. Among broken men and word-weavers you will find a kingdom of hollow sermons, where shame, fear, disgust burn to ash. There the eloquence of righteousness sings in honeyed tones, draped in dharma’s rhetoric.   But I—Duryodhana— I will fall upon the battlefield, in the sacred slaughter ground, where truth itself was bartered. And those who sat, blind, mute, while Draupadi’s garment was torn before their gaze— it is by their hands I shall be slain.   For I am Duryodhana, who once stripped the gods bare.