Dance of the Damned

By Amlan Hossain

In the heart of the village,

Where the earth breathes ancient secrets,

I am the chosen vessel,

Marked not by divine grace but by trembling shadows.

When the sun dips behind the hills, and the air thickens

With incense and camphor,

I don the guise of the Bhoota,

Embodying Panjurli and Guliga,

Not through blessing but through convulsions,

My body is a battleground where spirits clash and merge.

Each seizure is a sacrificial fire,

My senses ignited like the first flame of the Kola,

The ground beneath me erupts,

A canyon splitting the earth’s skin,

Swallowing me into a primordial darkness,

Where silence is a storm,

And my soul wrestles with unseen forces.

As the aura of the ritual thickens,

The air grows heavy, thick with the weight of unseen eyes,

My muscles tighten, a storm brews within,

A current of electric fire jolts through my veins,

Turning my limbs into erratic pendulums,

Twitching uncontrollably as if bound by invisible chains.

My breath comes in ragged, staccato bursts,

Each inhale a struggle, each exhale a battle,

My body betraying me in a dance of involuntary rhythms.

In these moments, I am a sacred vessel,

Not of marble but of trembling clay,

As if the forest itself breathes through me,

Each convulsion a pulse of the ancient forest’s heart,

My limbs jerking like branches in a storm,

Yearning to anchor, yet pulled

Into the wild dance of the Daivas.

The Guliga’s whisper coils around my mind,

The Goblin tightening its grip,

As if the very essence of the forest swells within,

My thoughts fractured into shards of moonlight,

Reflected in the river of chaos that runs through me.

My vision becomes a kaleidoscope of shattered lanterns,

Flickering, merging, dissolving into the abyss,

Colors bleeding into each other,

And shapes morphing in a frantic waltz.

I fall, a stone of ash cast into the river of time,

Each seizure a plunge into death and rebirth,

A descent into the darkness of the underworld,

Where the world fades to echoes of drumbeats,

And the breath I struggle for is the whisper of a deity,

As if I am both mortal and divine,

My heart pounding with a rhythm of creation and dissolution.

In the mortal deadly pain of these sacred seizures,

I am both sacrifice and saviour,

Smeared not with oil but with the sweat of the struggle,

My body, a vessel for the Panjurli’s fury,

My mind reflecting the primal dance of the gods,

Where the line between agony and enlightenment blurs.

The convulsions are a tempest tearing through my consciousness,

A cyclone of light and shadow,

Each flash is a burst of sacred insight,

Each tremor is a step closer to the divine threshold.

The villagers see the Daivas in my torment,

Their eyes awash with reverence,

Yet they do not know the truth of my suffering,

The dance I perform is not of grace but of survival,

Each convulsion is a step in the spiritual ballet of existence,

Where I am both the performer and the performance.

I light the diya each evening,

A humble flame against the gathering night,

Under the watchful gaze of the ancient neem,

Hoping for peace in my tumult,

But knowing the dance will continue,

That I am bound to the rhythm of the Daivas,

A sacred vessel, forever caught in the spiral of existence and divinity.

As the rituals end and I rise from the ashes,

I am both bruised and exalted,

A remnant of the divine dance,

A man who has glimpsed the edge of mortality,

And in that edge, I find acceptance,

In the reflection of the Daivas’ endless dance,

And may be in my suffering,

I too am a God.

By Amlan Hossain