Way back in school, when our geography teacher first introduced us to that 'Oxford school atlas' and made sure that we carried one to school everyday, i was one of d happiest kid who religiously followed the order, for I loved those maps or as a matter of fact, loved anything that was graphic and colourful and didn't strain my brains. Every day she would say "children, take out your atlases" and everyday we'd sit there with our textbook as well as the golden book placed side by side. The more I obeyed my teacher, the more I fell for those asymmetrical, amorphous zig saw puzzle-like land masses, coloured in all hues of pink and blue and green and yellow... Some were shaped beautifully like ice cream cones and candy floss, some resembled those well measured chocolate bars (go figure) and others, oddly marked, as if someone splashed a bucket of paint on the wall, or, remember the first time you made roti? I took pride in my country's beautiful shape, she seemed to stand out in glory with a head held high and arms outstretched. I was proud of my homeland too- my Assam. Nature sculpted her beautifully...like a raven in full flight, whose silken outstretched wings seem to add beauty to the silvery shimmer...
But now, as I sit flipping those pages, my heart wrenches in pain. I upturn my sand timer once again... Knowingly or unknowingly I am waiting for that inevitable moment, when a feather or two would fall and the raven would quiver in its flight; when the silvery string of shimmer may change it's colour, what would it be- crimson? Red? I am scared, I am scared.
Nay, I am sad. Sad, for the raven, I sketched at school would no longer stretch its brazen wings. I pity you Raven, soon you'll be nothing more than a blot of ink on a blotting paper... Yet, I promise, I'll sing of you.
