Manjari Shukla
Throbbing with life, bubbling with joy, they are my feelings, which are making me, feel so very happy and contented, that I am forced to articulate them in words. They are appearing to me, from within as dancing sylphs, beautiful are they… Merry making, inside me, and making me smile… even though I am alone, and by myself, talking to no one, nor sharing anything worth smiling… slowly they are engaging themselves, probably to the happiness vein in my body, and making me feel elated and gratified… this happiness is probably beyond definition, but Happy I am… and will be, I guess forever…
Manjari Shukla
The spirit left the body quietly, peacefully, when the body was relishing a sound sleep, after a night full of pain and turmoil. It saw, itself in the mirror, no form, just a formless presence, a bit weird, but still present. The body was lying lifeless. No movements, nothing…just lying… like a log of wood. The spirit, looked at it… the place where it existed for so many years. The frame has now made itself, so very pathetic, it thought. The body appears to be weak in appearance, because of the prolonged disease. The cravings, crying, moaning at nights, all are now silent… so strange, it appears, one moment back, everything was trying itself inside the body, to keep the spirit with itself, and one moment after everything is so very calmly silent, that this silence appears to be more soothing.


Suddenly, there is creaking of the door, a boy comes in, sees the body thinking it to be still alive, calling slowly, “Grandma, how are you feeling now?” The spirit is very much there, standing and staring, trying to figure out, what is happening? Since after the spirit has left the body, it is failing to recognize any bonds associated to the mortal frame. The boy is trying to decipher the silence of the body, but to no avail. He cries for the Doctor, a woman, along with a man, enters the cabin (the Doctor and a nurse). They examine the frame, and declare it to be dead. The boy starts weeping, holding the frame. The spirit is watching everything, but is not able to figure out the reason, probably because all bonds are lost after entering this new zone, DEATH; about which the spirit itself is unaware, it leaves the place in a confused state, but is unknowingly calm from within.