A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

If the police didn’t help ordinary people like you and me, if the police watched them die, doesn’t that mean, I wrote on Facebook, that the government is also a terrorist?

That is how my life is going forward—some insult in my face, some sweet in my mouth.

now I am knowing that there is no use asking these questions. In life, many things are happening for no reason at all.

that she lives, as before, in her own house. Even the meaning of “prison” is different for rich people. Can you blame me for wanting, so much, to be—not even rich, just middle class?

“We need educated people like you to support our party. More educated people must care about what is happening in our state, in our country.

Where public feeling goes, the court follows. Freedom will result not from boxes of papers and fights over legality but from a national outcry.

In this life, everybody is knowing how to give me shame. So I am learning how to reflect shame back on them also.

The world is made up of negativity, problems, hassles—trust me, a lawyer knows—and gemstones bring good energy.

“The system doesn’t always work for us. But you see that, now and then, you can make good things happen for yourself.” And I thought, only now and then? I thought I would have a better life than that.

It is true that there is a lot about life that the law misses.

Looking at me, you might think I have become a servant, but that is true only of my hands. In my mind, I have resisted being imprisoned.

I learned English, the language of progress. I couldn’t get anywhere if I didn’t speak English, even I knew that.

I am learning later, on my own. B-class. An actor who is not having the pretty face or light skin color for A-class roles. B-class actor is someone who is only playing a servant, a rickshaw puller, a thief. The audience is wanting to see B-class actors punched and slapped and defeated by the hero.

“Sharpen your knife! Sharpen your knife!”

When I am thinking about it, I am truly feeling that Jivan and I are both no more than insects. We are no more than grasshoppers whose wings are being plucked. We are no more than lizards whose tails are being pulled. Is anybody believing that she was innocent? Is anybody believing that I can be having some talent?

“In politics, you will see, sometimes it feels that you are in charge of everything and everyone. But we can only guide them, inspire them. At the end of the day, are they our puppets?

“Isn’t it always the quiet ones who turn out to have dangerous thoughts in their head?”

In this world, only one of us can be truly free.

I am telling this child, looking directly at the lens, “never let anyone tell you those lies. You are coming from the most precious place. Not from my womb, no, but from the deepest dreams of my heart.”

DO YOU GRIEVE? Know that I will return to you. I will be a flutter in the leaves above where you sit, cooking ruti on the stove. I will be the stray cloud which shields you from days of sun. I will be the thunder that wakes you before rain floods the room. When you walk to market, I will return to you as footprint on the soil. At night, when you close your eyes, I will appear as impress on the bed.