thinkALONG! 4th April

A TUESDAY FEATURE

hosts: Muskaan Ahuja, Lakshmi Iyer

guest editor: Ajaya Mahala

"Absence, the highest form of presence."

--- James Joyce

What does the hole in a card board suggest ? The presence of a hole is in fact absence of something; it is merely a round patch of card missing. Many a times, absence of a person or object is so conspicuous that it is intimately felt.

no clock

in the post office― August afternoon

-- Ruth Holzer

Is it not worth pondering about an absence? Someone said, presence makes something stronger while absence makes it fonder.

on this road

where nobody else travels autumn nightfall

-- Basho

Is this true that presence has something to with our sensory organs and absence is about our feelings? Presence and absence do not come as opposites as both help us realise the same ultimate truth.

charred houses

looking for a chair for the minister

-- Binayakumar Mohanty

And finally readers! I invite you all to share your own observations about 'absence' -- poignant and pensive -- through your views and poems, here.