Page 59 - Litteratteur Redefining World December issue

Litterateur redefining world December 2020

The Hue of Change, from Marvel to Marble

Somjeeta Pandey

Somjeeta Pandey currently resides in 2018.
Kolkata, India. She is an Assistant Professor The newspapers are filled with the heart-
of English at Gobardanga Hindu College, wrenching news of the spectacular white
West Bengal, India. She is also a part-time marble
PhD scholar at the Department of Humanities
and Social Science at Indian Institute of monument changing its color due to
Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. pollution.
The monument, that was once the apotheosis
of beauty and love, was slowly turning into a
bleak shadow of its former self.
Insect feces and industrial emissions had
turned the Makrana marble monument into
yellow and
green, stripping it off its white-washed
splendor.
My heart sank.
I had visited the Taj Mahal at the age of thirty.
The times had been different then!
I had the fortune of basking in the
1970. breathtaking resplendence of the Taj Mahal.
At exactly 4 am I stood in front of the Forty-eight years have passed since then,
monument, The cruel hands of time have not spared me.
The sun rays were slowly peeping I have aged, my body has changed colors, my
through the vast cloud of darkness, skin has grown thinner and translucent, full
I failed to properly discern its shape of
but as the time’s hands slowly wrinkles and folds.
moved the wheel of time, my But my heart aches to think of the havoc
eyes captured the most breathtaking mankind is indulging in wrecking.
moment of my life, As I sadly looked at the newspaper picture of
The wondrous monument with its the Taj Mahal, I sardonically laughed at the
magnificent glory was standing right irony
in front of my eyes, of life!
marvelously white, glimmering in the The burden of these passing years was
rays of the sun, supposed to rob me off my youthful hue,
I sat there, awestruck and But an inanimate wonder of the world now
mesmerized, meticulously noting the stood battered and dilapidated.
changing colors of the Time changed the colors of my body,
monument, from pink to white to Humans changed the color of the Taj Mahal.
golden, synchronized perfectly with
the changing colors
of the sky.
. . .

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