Vijayshankar reflects on fragile bonds and quiet return in an evocative poem for DifferentTruths.com, mapping friendship’s ascent and echo
Friendship is that tremulous water
between two selves
which resists the imposition of a name.
In moments of thirst,
both hands incline together,
and each drink, unknowingly,
the other’s shadow.
At times,
a solitary figure arrives
at the edge of this reservoir,
lays down the burden of fatigue,
and assembling stones,
begins to construct a staircase—
toward an unseen elevation.
The stones retain a pulse,
a residual warmth
of fingers that once touched them in trust.
He ascends.
At every step, a face is left behind—
as windows close, one after another,
while within, a lamp continues to burn
in soundless persistence.
The air at higher altitudes
carries the chill of another order of height.
Voices return, striking against walls,
like an unseen bird
suspending its own echo in the sky.
Loneliness descends
as a translucent garment
upon the shoulders.
Then, one day,
he turns to look back:
the paths once traversed
are now veiled in yellowing grass;
those whom he once called
remain occupied within their own firmaments—
quiet, distant, flickering.
Two minds
are not meant to become steps for one another;
they hold, rather, like the earth itself—
so that before falling,
one may still hear one’s own name.
Certain utterances
dissolve into sunlight
before reaching the lips,
and remain folded within silence,
like a pressed leaf
in an old book—
Its fragrance accompanies without speaking.
Pausing momentarily
in the air of the summit,
He hears the tremor of his own steps.
An ancient call, rising from below,
spreads around him like mist.
In distant valleys,
A hand is still raised toward him.
He halts—
and, for the first time,
turns downward.
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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