By Shankhoneel Ghosh
I am afraid. I am very afraid that there is a monster out there in the open. That monster can, whenever it wants to, pick me up and rip me apart. It can do whatever it wants with me, and even cause my absolute destruction if it fancies so. All that I have, all that I love, all that I depend on - all that loves me, all that has me, and all that depends on me - all that can be snatched and destituted by this monster… at any moment. We all pray to this monster, abide by its rules, and placate and please its acolytes - only so that it may leave us unharmed.
But the monster has an insatiable hunger. A hunger that is lust, greed and gluttony, that is fuelled by fear and rage, which is perhaps our own fear and rage. For it was at a moment of weakness that we ourselves constituted the monster, breathing life into it. Out of that weakness, we hoped that we could control it - or at least, with this spectre of annihilation in front of us, we would control ourselves. We still sometimes like to think that we, together, exercise some control over the monster. But deep inside, we know that the monster has a mind of its own; it eats and drinks as it pleases, and we have little choice but to offer ourselves - one by one, sometimes the feeblest, when the monster is not looking, sometimes the ablest, when it is - as sacrifices to it, so that we would not provoke its wrath, so that it would not storm down on us and wipe us out in one fell swoop.
Our delusion grows stronger during those times when the monster lies in a well-fed stupor, only to be shattered each time when it rewakes and recommences its rampage. We still put up a face as if we do not know that it exists, for although we may have felt its earth-shattering steps and thundering breaths, we have only heard it from afar. For the monster likes to rest in the shadows, and when it moves, it moves so fast and with so a great fury that we are only too eager to disbelieve what our eyes see. And every time it is about to let out its sky-piercing scream, we react with instantaneous alacrity, for we do not know better than to keep its tribute ready before its sound reaches our ears.
By Shankhoneel Ghosh
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