Anatomy of a Death

He punched the ticket on the turnstile,

Entered the platform stretching a mile.

Walked to the tracks with a head full of ghosts,

Some tenants, some uninvited and some hosts.

They pulled the possessed body to the edge

Of the platform and let the mind dredge

Memories of familiar but distant lands,

Of raptures shared by the sea and golden sands.

He remembered through daze and stupor,

Happiness he lost like subtile vapour.

The endless platform he trudged alone,

Fear and despair nudged him along.

“Truth shall set you free”, he thought “they said”,

But lies are clear and present, and so is the dread.

“Death walks friendless”, he sighed. “Can I be a friend?”,

“Can I trust death to honour me or is it just a fiend?”,

“Can it smudge away the lies and dread, make me wiser?”,

“Or hide in darkness its bloated wealth and prove a miser?”.

So the thoughts raced through his stormy mind,

Some with utmost clarity, others undefined.

His senses came floating back, painting a world unkind,

He took note of the platform, the tracks perfectly aligned.

Standing at the precipice of life with death’s allure near,

He abandoned hope, desire, despair and fear.

Slowly he slid his polished leather beyond the red line,

His thoughts floating towards madness, his will supine.

He found his evergreen grief rooted in moist tears,

Between shifting sands of smiles and pain through lost years.

Like a bug allured by the lustre of black light,

Charmed by the soothing embrace of night,

Bound to life by tether of cold sweat,

Chained to cadaver of dreams undead.

Dreams dragged him daily through drudge,

Through secret smiles and hidden grudge.

All gone now, blown away by winds of futile storm,

The mind’s gale swept landscape where memories swarm.

Dry, desolate, deserted and destitute of bliss,

Where worms of despair roam and snakes of anguish hiss.

So he draped himself in exquisite embroidered sorrow

And followed his bejewelled tears towards the morrow.

He saw a gingerly creeping trail of light on rails,

“An oncoming train” - he thought, and felt his heart on a drail.

With white wings of pain and misery,

He lept towards the glistening rails silvery,

On Atropos’ wings towards destiny he flew,

To all dreams, wishes, hopes he said adieu.

Poem can also be read at: https://allpoetry.com/poem/16735873-Anatomy-of-a-Death-by-Abhijit-Chatterjee

A Night At The Autumn Festival

Whipped cream clouds rain down from high,through velvet winds in vanilla sky,through crimson dawn and orange dusk,the mind wanders for the soul to lusk.Perfumed smiles beneath street lamps.fairgrounds full of kids and tramps,the lights and sounds engulf and dazeas feet tumble through the human haze.The air is thick with bells that peal,devotees throng the streets in zeal,midst electric warmth and incensed breezethe cutpurse operates with fluent ease.The lucent faces come and go,some from slums, some homes highbrow.life saunters home, those faces yawnas radiant night gives way to dawn.

Once a Night’s Dream

Of ancient lands and mythical streams,Sweeping pastures where starlight gleams.The vibrant green and marine blue,Between them a thousand wondrous hue.This is the glorious world we lost,Our present on future has rendered a cost.A world now only in dreams entrapped,The pastures, the streams and lands unmapped.Marvels only the night can unlock,Of lives beyond time and ticking clock.A splendid genesis of quaint mystery,Fables and lores forged in prehistory.Beyond the distant pelagic climes,Far where the wedgebill chimes,Deep forests where tigers prowl,On moonlit nights the grey wolves howl.Of sublime design this dream I dared,In chains of pedantry is ensnared.The strict straight lines of daily reality,Perpendicular lanes in perfect symmetry,Harsh street lights and electric wires,Astray cynics in dull attires.Air thick with doubt, fear and smog,And noxious vocables of the demagogue.Away from this daily strife and brawl,And sights that invoke thoughts banal,Lies the silver land of visions eternal,Where breezes blow melodies of songs vernal.There, hopes germinate into abundant flora,With method shrouded in obscure anaphora.But the trees turn ashen and the sky grows dark,The land once resplendent is now stark.As grey morning dawns the alarm clock sounds,The dream breaks and the vision drowns.I wake up drowsy on my austere wooden bed,And start to plan my dreary day ahead.

Inception and The Dream of Descartes

The Matrix has always been hailed as one the most accurate celluloid adaptation of the “Dream Argument” of Descartes, but people mostly overlook the Cartesian parallels in Nolan's Inception (2010). Nolan is a storyteller. He engrosses us so much with the plot at hand that the audience forgets to engage with the philosophy of the film while enjoying the film. It was only later after I finished watching the film that I began to understand how Descartes might have influenced Nolan's philosophy. The film begins in a dream and slowly rises up to the level of reality on-board the Shinkansen in Japan.

Haider and The Common Man: A Reading of Vishal Bhardwaj's Film in Arthur Miller's Light

There can be little doubt in the fact the Vishal Bhardwaj has established himself in the last few years as one of the foremost imaginative and nuanced film-maker in India. Much of his success can be attributed to his adaptations of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. The Indian-ness of Mr Bhardwaj's adaptations is what makes the movies so critically and commercially successful in the Indian milieu. This points to the fact that something is universal with Shakespeare's tragedies and with tragedies in general.

The Branson and Bezos Adventure

It's a bird!...No, it's a plane!...No, it's Bezos and Branson in their game of one-upmanship of who would become the world's first bonafide private astronaut (sounds a lot like private pilots). And, guess what? It is still not clear even after their respective successful flights. A lot of the controversy depends on definitions and technicalities and who's defining them. One of the technical terms that are doing the rounds after their flights is "Karman Line". Named after Hungarian-American engineer Theodore von Karman, it is defined as the boundary between atmosphere and space. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale sets it at roughly 100 kilometres above mean sea level. Now, some aeronautical agencies often do not recognize the Karman Line as the valid definition for 'edge of space' and many have their own respective boundaries set for defining the edge of space. NASA, for example, sets it at 50 miles (80 kilometres) above mean sea level. Any flight above 80 kilometres is considered by NASA to be a spaceflight. However, even within NASA, this metric has often stayed inconsistent and sometimes its definition was motivated by Soviet and American achievements during the space race in the early 1960s. But, most of the world followed (and still follows) the Karman Line as the defined boundary between space and atmosphere.

Using Google Earth to Study Ecological Imbalance caused by Urbanization

I do not necessarily devote time to writing articles on the effects of urbanization on ecology because it would take a lot of painstaking research and consume a lot of time without any prospect of attracting the attention of the concerned authorities who bear the responsibility of sustaining the environment. Scores of research papers have been written on the topic with no effect. But a Prime Time report aired on NDTV on 20th June 2019 about the water crisis last year got me thinking. The report is available on youtube. In that report, anchor Ravish Kumar alleges that in Bihar water reservoirs and public ponds are being taken over by land-mafias for illegal construction. Now, 'illegal' in this case might be considered a relative term since Ravish Kumar reports that proper documentation of those wetlands and ponds are being altered in government land registry offices by the land-mafia (obviously working in cahoots with the local political system) to remove any evidence of a wetland being present at the site of the development project and thus the property is legally acquired by the land-mafia. Hence, if some concerned citizen files a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) against the 'developers' or 'promoters', it is virtually impossible to prove a pond being present at the site prior to the construction (as the records have been altered).

Abhijit Chatterjee

Lazy armchair philosopher and the occassional poet.

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In A Drunken Stupor

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When December Sets In

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Strolling Through A Street

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A Night At The Autumn Festival

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The Dichotomy of Life

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Once a Night’s Dream

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An Honest Prayer

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Using Google Earth to Study Ecological Imbalance caused by Urbanization

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