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regular-article-logo Friday, 10 May 2024

Oh so(no) things that have(n’t) happened

Would you remember a time you could say things, any sort of things, without imagining the bars?

Sankarshan Thakur Published 05.03.23, 02:53 AM
Everything so settled and everything so arranged, you could almost have missed me.

Everything so settled and everything so arranged, you could almost have missed me. Anon

You know what’s happening, all of you know. It’s clear as clarified butter, or ghee. Cow’s ghee. GauMataa ki jai. It’s as clear as that. Ghee. And CowsGhee. And CowsGheeKiMataaKiQasam, kuttey, main aaa raha hoon. Kuttey! Main teri jaan le loonga!

But where have kuttey arrived amidst the cows? Don’t ask. In all of this serenity? Can you not see? Everything so settled and everything so arranged, you could almost have missed me. But you want to ask about kuttey. What sort of question is that? Now you’ll ask where have cheetay arrived from amidst no cheetay? Bad habit, asking questions all the time. And impudent questions, offensive type, like they were unthinking questions. (More cheetay are arriving amidst few cheetay that arrived amidst no cheetay although not all cheetay are doing well, the bush telegraph tells us. But what? Bush telegraph? Fek News, completely Phalse, mind it, like Bartaaniya Biskut Corporashun products. You saw what we did to them folks, searchings happened and kept happening and happening day and night and night and day until they got messages, although they will tell you they did not get messages. They did. Our work with them has been done danadone done!)

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Right! Where were we? But we wish we knew. We turned a corner from NothingHappened and then everything began to happen and happened so much and so profusely that we forgot where we were. Would you remember a time you could say things, any sort of things, without imagining the bars? I mean the bars you are put behind, not the bars you argue at or drink in or do both very often. Would you remember though? The time when “Ek atyachari raja thha… There was once a cruel and barbarous king…” was a Chandamama story that you could read or rubbish as you wished, and not a reality show running on loop, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year without taking leave? And it was told in the past tense, all of it. “Ek atyachari raja thha...” Bachpan ke din bhi kya din thhe... No more, no longer. After NothingHappened, things began to happen, and here we are, not even knowing where it is that we came from. But there are, thank whoever, I wouldn’t know, images that survive. And they are the representation of NothingHappened and how soothed and soothing everything used to be. Lekin…

What you see above is you know

What you may no longer see ’

Cause who now bosses us is a foe

And to show this your life he’ll charge as fee.

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