2 and 2 are five

The collars of containers wear the blame of privilege, Stacked high in roof-touching cabinets, Housing the finest, untouched for everyday hands. Coriander wilts over sprouted grains, While the canister rusts with forgotten horse grams. Chickpeas and kidney beans grow restless, Crowded into a tin of quiet rivalries. Cinnamon and cardamom build their citadel, Bayleaf watches with a wary eye, And clove rolls away, unmindful of hierarchies. Gajar ka halwa and pulao sit in quiet discord, Pav bhaji is not denouncing barfi but looking for justice, Each waiting for a moment to outshine the other. In the stillness, the bangles fall silent, And the utensils gather, A muted witness to hunger unspoken. : Vedhase/stefilnova.

We pray for fifteen minutes but lie in perfect grammar the rest of the day. F ifteen minutes......that is all it takes for us to enact religion each day. We bow our heads before mute idols, murmur archaic hymns, fold our hands with perfunctory piety, convinced that these fleeting genuflections will purchase us redemption.  But what of the remaining twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes? That vast dominion belongs to language. It is language that procures our daily bread from weary vendors beneath dilapidated awnings, pleads our causes in sepulchral courtrooms, seduces and betrays within silent chambers, composes elegies for our departed and nocturnes for our restless progeny.  Without language, prayer is naught but the stirring of vacuous breath within a shadowed room. scripture becomes mere pulp pressed into forgotten pages. Even silence remains an unformed abyss until language arrives to consecrate it with a name. We flatter ourselves that faith defines us. Yet long befo...