Waiting for My Flight to Chennai at the Kolkata Airport

Uncut Poetry

We are all strangers singularly and a brotherhood en masse. With a seamless earth and a sky being shared between us, in spite of boundaries - of homes, cities, countries, continents, hearts, colour - we cannot but be similar, looking out for each other and being there lending a hand when we see the other struggle. The tragedy of borders is their illusion of easy divisibility. But a line drawn is a slash on a heart which in spite of divisions seeks conjoinment. In thought, religion, spirit or opinion. How can we be anything less than a whole? If a million stars can be a galaxy, and adorn the skies with their synergetic beauty, how can millions of us be merely individuals, concentrating on differences, trying to find our fulfilments alone, and not strive for connections? I love the idea of all of us solitary as a reality, but being part of a collective as a necessity. It could be the way our parents are the nurturers and the caregivers, to the way we marry and start our own broods, seeking and getting succor and shoulders. It's not a case of quid pro quo but a primordial need. We are not meant to be alone - however much we might do a Thoreau. And if we can be at one with a partner why can't it be with a collective, a mass, a country, across countries? In the hullabaloo of our own egos and existences, we forget we are lesser alone, as soon enough we start to struggle with the minutiae of our solitary existences, wondering where time went, wondering why we are not what we can really be. In the schemata of life's design, we are made independent by body, but are never enough in brain or brawn to pull the entirety of our existence alone. It is my firm belief that it is the universe's strategy, its design, that we are made adequate, but lesser - so we can reach out, join hands and find both the strength and the comfort of being in each other's company and support. We are more because we are more, lesser when we are less. If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on the need for being solitary and together -

• I Heard That You Just Set Off On a Journey
• I Can Sense Her Loneliness
• The Art of the Lonely Good Deed

Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.

Get in touch with me on [e-mail] The details of the music used in this episode are as follows - Epic Intro 2017 by Sascha Ende Link: https://filmmusic.io/en/song/epic-intro-2017 Licence: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license