My Voice

My friendship with words is as old as my memory. There were days when I found myself extremely lonely in my childhood; even in those days, words used to flutter within my closed fist. As soon as I opened my fist, they would fly towards the sky shining like glow-worms. I used to sadly watch them leave, wondering, “Why did I open my fist? If I had not, the glow-worms would not have flown away.” One thing I could never understand, was whether I saw words or images? Some say that we see images in the shape of words. But can we really do that? Images usually take shape in the mind on recalling seen things. But I have perceived a number of unseen things in my mind. Anyhow, words or pictures were my friends those days, and the strange thing was that my words were mostly colourful. They had some colours on their bodies.

Words are quiet clever and understanding; they change colour according to the occasion. When the heart is sad, they dress in dark colours and when the heart is happy, they take all the colours of the rainbow and seem to outshine the rainbow. Sometimes they are as pale as death, and at other times they are as dark as a night without the moon.

I do not know how my control over words transformed them into poetry. I know that readers and poets of Kritya must have unique associations with words. So, this issue of Kritya is devoted to the world of words.

With best wishes,

Rati Saxena