A Thing About Light

By Purbasha Roy

Divaagar - Render Tender (2020), Mixed Media, dimensions variable 
Image Description: The image shows a close-up shot of an orchid branch in a dim, purple-tinted space. The orchid branch, extending from the left side of the image, features five blooming Vanda Miss Joaquim orchids. In the background, on the right, a climbing plant with lush leaves dangles down vertically. Its shadows are projected onto the wall behind it. To the right of the plant is a small, bright orb of light, which looks out-of-focus.

I hold a special thing for light. Call it devotion or mild obsession. Light from objects  moves through the universe and reaches our eyes. Once this happens, signals are sent to our brains, which try to help us understand what lies before us. This is the scientific angle we are familiar with. Now, the question is if the thing in consideration is light and not just what it shimmers upon, reflects, or swells with its richness or grace. Its sources are varied.

Once during Diwali a glowing ground spinner came beneath my shoes. I was quite young. What I remember are the escaping flickers and a round hole in the sole of the shoe. I can't recall how mother reacted but she must have checked my feet in haste. Like a passenger checking for the correct train bogie upon arriving at the station at the moment of its departure. 

In winters, my mother would clad my siblings and me in woolens and leave us in our house garden. I still remember the patterns, sunshafts through the wide guava tree standing in the middle of our garden. These stories etched upon light were first told to me in the house where my early childhood was spent. Like something pressed between dreamscapes, waiting to be chosen by some passerby.

Later we shifted to another quarter to which my father was allotted. It was surrounded by wild bushes and large trees that must have grown by nature's free will. The game of light and shadows on our bodies as we moved between and beneath them for our summer vacation adventures. As twilight paddled closer and closer, I would watch a wild shrub, called kata gach in the local Chotanagpur language – meaning a thorny tree with scarlet bloom in the middle of a tall skyward branch, with a round thorny structure at the tip. It appeared to me like ember, and it remained in sight until darkness washed the woods completely. It was later in life I realised empathy has shapes such as this. It outshines every philosophical quote, filled with a mixed pulp of anonymity, without criticism.

I longed for these kinds of miracles after life busied me with mundanity. Damn! How much time I wasted. I misplaced something precious, losing hold of things in my numbness. Days studying harder and longer to fill the platter of my worth with refined achievements. Now, these certificates do nothing other than sit quietly in the drawer of the almirah. Their bodies untouched by my eyes, their very existence a question. 

Divaagar - Render Tender (2020), Mixed Media, dimensions variable 
Image Description: In a space lit in dim, purple hues, a symmetrical arrangement of potted plants and numerous objects are placed against a blank wall. In the foreground of this arrangement are two pots of blooming orchids, placed side by side on the hardwood floor. They are flanked by two slightly taller metal stands. On each metal stand are a glowing light orb, a white vase holding reed diffusers, a small cone, and a glass sphere from which hangs a climbing plant. Slightly behind each metal stand is a tall, potted bamboo plant. A third bamboo plant is placed in between the other two; it is the tallest and most central object in the arrangement. The entire arrangement is symmetrical and deliberate, almost resembling a shrine. 

I spend my time beneath tube lights, which sometimes make me imagine the lamplight mother lit on summer evenings. It was a showpiece. The way light rotated slowly through the ceiling and walls gave an impression of a cluster of firemoths. Enchanting and stuffed with livingness. 

I was claying myself with moments of falseness. The river surface that seems calm is said to have a whirlpool surging in its depth. I had forgotten to stare at clouds’ edges filtering sunrays. Or the skies holding a grand blue that gave me goosebumps for reminding me what it meant to have handsomeness and still possess humility. Until one fateful day, death touched me intimately. It was November. My brain, seduced by the eroticism of fever, lost its sensibility. Till now, I cannot figure out why I behaved that way. I wanted to take the last journey of life. My pulse was falling and there was a tremendous pain in me like something was dying within me . . . my family prohibiting me from what I desired. On the verge of death and life, I was half-conscious and failed to recognize anyone but my mother. Only a single patch of reminiscence lingered. The crosshatch of a light whose source could have been the sun or flood lights. After many attempts, I couldn't figure out what its color was. I felt it being poured on my face as I was carried in a stretcher to the hospital. 

In the hospital, I missed the sun, moon, and stars. The light tumbling down from them as if in search of my body. My own reactions to them. I considered them my lovers, my favourite stalkers. I was a romantic, and my friends teased me often when they caught me humming love songs in between seminars and classes.

My soul stood in the middle of the richness of light. Its symphonies: an unforgettable love for a primary-school teacher who taught the first chapters of a science book, dedicated to bandwidths. How the shapes of learning linger, never fading, when absorbed by our deepest roots. Watered and nourished further in life by never settling in our thirst for knowledge. 

Something tore my sentience open. Even the dappled light reflected from the dining table's plastic cover onto the floor seemed divine. If I missed it I would lose something that I would never receive again. So much resemblance to the ones who love us and whom we don't value. The loose shape of God comes to meet us on this mortal earth. I have tried gently to make it fall on my chest. It could never reach me there but it would touch my stomach as I contorted my body with naive yoga asanas. I assumed the birth of life happened in this manner.

Divaagar - Render Tender (2020), Mixed Media, dimensions variable 
Image Description: The image shows the interior of a space lit in dim, purple hues. To the right of the image, a sheer curtain visibly separates this space from its exterior. On the left of the image are various potted plants including bamboo, leafy plants, climbing plants, and orchids. In the center of the image, a metal stand holds up a bright light orb, on which are circular light spots. To the right of the orb are a vase holding reed diffusers and a small cone. On the ceiling of this space is a flat, circular, blue-tinted LED light. A projection of a pair of disembodied hands, with their palms open, are displayed on the surface of the light. 

Last week, at dawn, I went out to the balcony to answer a call, shivering in the December cold. Often, the telephone networks are not clear at home. After the call ended, I was struck by the light of a street lamp. Flashing the vagabond fog's climb down from the skies. The soft wind giving it the pace of an ant. Highlighting the long queue before a single window, an inquiry for passports in my small town. 

These treasures of light liberate me from me. From my numbness, deseeding itself from the elements that make up my humble knowledge. As if I still have the words to write a poem I imagined I’d lost while passing the subway, feeling nothing.

---

Purbasha Roy is a writer from Jharkhand, India. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Channel Bluestem, DASH, Hive Avenue, Metaphysical-Times, Hills Hoist, Bayou Review, long con magazine and elsewhere. Roy attained second place in the 8th Singapore Poetry Contest. 

*

Divaagar (b.1992, Singapore) is a visual artist who works through installation, performance, and digital media. His practice examines narratives; toying with attachments and proposing new models through the lenses of bodies, identities and environments. Notable exhibitions include MENTAL: Colours of Wellbeing, ArtScience Museum, State of Motion 2021: [Alternate / Opt] Realities, Marina One (Singapore), and Time Passes, Singapore Art Museum (Singapore),

---

---

If you’ve enjoyed reading this article, please consider making a donation. Your donation goes towards paying our contributors and a modest stipend to our editors. Singapore Unbound is powered by volunteers, and we depend on individual supporters. To maintain our independence, we do not seek or accept direct funding from any government.