Parashar was an electrician. He was also a writer, a writer who was not
much read. He considered his writings to be like those flowers that didn’t
smell of any particular class. They just bloomed, like the plants that grew without anyone's care in those old buildings, or like those shrubs that never attracted anyone's attention. He knew deep inside that writers are not writers if they are not read, but he didn't seem to care much. He
kept on expressing himself on things that concerned him the most.
He seemed to
be searching for something, of what he wasn’t sure. Sometimes he thought he was
looking for a jaw-dropping miracle that’d transform the way people thought, for instance, if
a person could fly, or bring a country of the Sahara Desert, or could
make the vast lands in Australia habitable, or if someone could walk on the sky, and so
on.
At other times he thought he was looking for a drama, like a person who was
being crucified by a group of powerful people but was speaking of love and affection; with eyes on heaven, he was seeking
forgiveness on behalf of those very people who were killing him in public.
He
thought he was also looking for some magic; magic that would transform paper
currency into fruits and flowers, or feed the starving stomachs, or could transform the most disastrous of weapons into garlands.
He was
looking for these three things; miracle, drama, and magic, but all of these
through his words.
Where are the words
Write
Switch on love
Switch off hate
Write
Switch off war
Switch on peace
Write
Switch on forgive
Switch off rage
Write
Switch off pollution
Switch on purity
Write
Switch on light
Switch off darkness
This work, especially the form of the poems, is partly influenced by an excellent poet, Dr. Rita De's short verse in Bengali:
সুইচ অন ঘর আলোময়
সুইচ অফ ঘর রামময়
which in English, roughly translates into:
Switch on, the room is illuminated
Switch off, the room rims with Rama
