On DifferentTruths.com, Vijayshankar’s powerful poem laments the loss of intellectual depth and reason in a world governed by empty slogans.
Within the haze of history,
a voice has diminished—
a voice that insisted
the human project remains unfinished.
It reminded us
that the true site of civilisation
does not reside in palaces,
nor in the polished glass of markets;
it emerges, instead,
within those open public spheres
where individuals,
through the labour of reason,
listen to one another.
He held
that modernity
is not a closed text,
but an incomplete page—
upon which humanity
is yet to inscribe its sentences.
Yet the world
no longer writes in sentences;
it produces slogans.
In place of reason,
there is the noise of the crowd.
And within this noise,
an aging thinker
departed quietly—
as though,
from a darkened room,
someone had lifted away
the lamp.
Picture design by Anumita Roy
Vijayshankar Chaturvedi is a senior journalist, author, and public intellectual with over three decades in the Indian media. He spent more than a decade on Jansatta’s editorial team and now contributes incisive columns on public policy, international affairs, and socio-political issues to Jansatta, Navbharat Times, ABP News, Samalochan, Jan Chowk, and Hindi Saamana. His recent explorations delve deeply into human consciousness, decision-making processes, and the profound transformation of agency in the AI era.
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