There is a Suicide Point at Jatinga

By Disha Pegu

Some nights awful as the darkness

that intertwines until the moonless 

sky,

Seeds dismay in the depth of mind,

like it could bring a curse to ruin 

and die.  

Intense is the coldness of the wind

before a rain,

While it whooshes through the "lofty

Borail" mountain.

Where the happiness of birds is merely

eternal at night, while they fly to the sky

higher, 

It's a hope, they are born with wild and

free feathers. 

As night gets darker, fog rolls

in, tethering to a chain of mystery,  

Streets and homes get bathed in a 

river of electric lights, it's a way to

escape the darkful misery.

Light is a sight of magic, birds in night 

fly towards it, flapping their wings up

and down, 

In the dead of night, while whispers

between the sky and trees are 

swallowed down, 

All quiet like the billow and breeze 

before a tsunami, they act quietest at 

the shores of the ocean.  

Suddenly, those happier birds started 

to drop from the sky, 

Like a cyclone uproots a tree to fall 

on the ground, laden it with sigh, 

Oh, my soul feels faint! hovering 

over the tears of severance, 

Lamentably, it becomes a memory

of forsaken, woven by irreverence.

Author's note : "Jatinga" is a village on a ridge in Dima Hasao district of Assam. It is known for being the location of bizzare natural phenomenon of bird suicide and is often referred to as the "Bermuda Triangle" for birds.

By Disha Pegu