Silence. Language falls silent. The alphabet retreats in no particular order into a “lackness of light”. Give it a name and try again. Corner. Corners as refuge. As shadow. As the opposite of light. “Retreats” as in by choice or “is driven” into a space of utter dark. Perhaps both. So. Language loses its identity. It no longer has a presence. The meaning is drained out of it. The departure of “sound”. The ‘audible’ of language is choked by this “new” Absence. Absence that disallows articulation. Meaning loses out to ‘meaning less ness’. Abruptly. Even with blatant force. Force of “Circumstance” as it un folds. An almost immediate “ab rupture.” A paralysis by choice or by some form of “command” from “external forcibles”. A deportation.

Within the silence resides a deeper silence – a thought made audible made borrowing while reading Anne Carson’s Nay Rather on translating that which is untranslatable and other thoughts – One with intent. Equally hidden. A place of implied safe ness. My use of “implied” as a word that suggests the tentative. The “almostdoubt”. Is any part of our being safe any longer? What if indeed it is. A place that is safe. Not compromised. In fact, the opposite. A place of resistance. A hiding place. Where language may find refuge. A place for recuperation. Healing. Gathering marshalling one’s defenses. Perhaps a springboard from which language has an opportunity to “bounce back”. Regain meaning.

Meaninglessness is not the opposite of meaning. It is the “lack” that swallows light. The empowerment of being a “holder of meaning” is what distinguishes our humanity from other “ities”. Losing language* losing voice strips* us of the “Human”. This may be a slow process or one that is accelerated in our world by an act of total destruction by a nation of power towards one without. What happens when this enforced “naked ness” acts as camouflage for a deeper humanity within? What happens to those who through “grit” and may I dare, “miracle”, manage to survive the Transport and the Camp? What happens to those who manage to survive the Transport and the Camp? I repeat this for by the time of the Stripping, all faith in the Miracle has been buried. Faith death. The Divine that is usually responsible for making miracles happen no longer exists either as or in Belief. Grit alone, then. A Solitary that survives the Lack. We know these Beings that bear their Silences through Agamben’s Auschwitz. How will their “vocabulary”, find Voice? Who will translate the voices whose rebirthing is designed for that even deeper silence within?

What happens when Memory fails in its sworn task to remember? When it no longer feels the marks left behind by the Vast Burning. The sensation of being singed by events that defy all that is good in us.

Art by Max Neumann.

II

Some of the things I remember of last nights dream:

A yellow coloured falling leaf. Weighed down by a dewdrop.

A crystal ball. Backlit by the twice-exhausted sun sinking deep into the earth.

A giant shadow in motion. Like an unexpected winter chill in the height of summer. A sandpaper voice singing a lullaby.

Words marching past. Regimented in khaki.

Jackboots without torsos.

Cheerleader in arms.

Rifles swinging like batons.

Spiders weaving webs of steel.

Spines of books crumbling into ash.

Sound of wings flapping.

Countless cradles being smashed against the trunks of giant tress.

Wailing caterpillars throwing a tantrum.

Crickets with butterfly wings.

Our present, under siege.

Art by Max Neumann.

III

Those gestures. The ones we repeat in our denial of superstition. Rituals of repetition are a given-known part of our lives. Particularly while attempting to ward off evil. Whether it is the non-believer who from childhood has learnt to “cross” herself as she passes a roadside shrine or the mental bead-counter that mutters a gayatri mantra under her breath – a swiftly whispered “om bhur bhuva swaha…” each time the plane dips sharply and the startlement in the heart does a double take.

This doesn’t hurt anyone does it?

Thing is life occurs. Regardless. Like time. It travels single-mindedly in one direction. Death happens not because you run out of time but because of it. What about emptiness? Think of the nights that have shaken you out of deep sleep at 2 am or 3 definitely not at 4 when you are often awake for the morning walk that breathes 7548 steps out of you. Nights that have emptied your mind-body out of its numb-sleep and labelled you “vacant”, “to-let” or is that* toolate*? Either way there is a new inhabitant. Emptiness. One that sets anchor in your within. An unwelcome guest you cannot refuse. And the boxes? The ones you have neatly sealed. And erratically ticked? Storage devices for unwelcome memories? Or “callmybluff empties!” One doesn’t know.

I dream of rust these day-nights. Clearly the fallout from rusting my “trees”. Photographs on archival paper of varying size with printed black and white trees from many forests that I spend time rusting. Rusted metal sheets. Scrap iron that has gathered rust before its final demise. Not filings. Never. Somehow handful of rusted filings are not what I dream of using. Remorse, this rust. Terminal and tenacious. Nails that strangle coffins are about to taste rust. In this dream of “rust”, I am busy running after words.

Art by Max Neumann.

---

Illustrations by Max Neumann and the text by Naveen Kishore appear in Bengali translation as Aynar Mukh O Onnanyo Chhaya, translated from the English by Netra Mukherjee (Eklavya Publishing, 2025).