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Mainstream, Vol 63 No 4, January 25, 2025

Peaceful Darkness | Devika Sharma

Sunday 26 January 2025

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The auto met the electric car,
In a perfect perpendicular
On the Janpath road, where
Children, men, and women
Horses, tanks and planes,
Come together every year to
Display India’s cultural and muscular might.
One flipped over, the other caved in a little.
 
There was a complete darkness,
Beautiful and peaceful,
Where there was no thought, no thinking
Where mind and body were not binaries
Rather, they were non-existent.
The mind, the body, the senses
Were at rest, complete rest.
The darkness, which could not be seen,
Which cannot be visualised,
Maybe comparable to blinding brightness,
Which belongs to the realm of wordless and formless.
That darkness entered me and surrounded me,
It nurtured me
It freed me from memories and senses
It freed me from past and future
It freed me from its present
The darkness became me
I became the darkness.
No pain,
No regret,
No frustration,
No aspiration,
No shame,
No humiliation,
No longing,
No desire,
No prayer.
Maybe, that is how it is
At one’s own arrival
At the feet of one’s maker.
No meanings woven,
No answers sought,
No dreams left.
 
Pain dawned on my body
as I was pulled
Out of the auto rickshaw,
Blood was gushing through my veins,
Little did I know,
Blood was oozing out of my head.
Love, anxieties, longing and prayer,
Desire, past and future,
Began catching up,
All too soon,
Blinding darkness faded
All too soon.

— Devika Sharma works as a Senior Consultant, Department of Elementary Education, NCERT, New Delhi)

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