Gita Viswanath is the author of two novels – Twice it Happened, (2019) and A Journey Gone Wrong (2022), a non-fiction book, The ‘Nation’ in War: A Study of Military Literature and Hindi War Cinema (2014)and a children’s book, Chidiya. Her poems, essays and short stories have been published in several print and online journals. Her short films “Family Across the Atlantic” and “Safezonerz” are available on YouTube. She is also the co-founder of an online film club called Talking Films Online

Numbers vs Words

Except for the number one, 
that pioneer
and its offspring four and seven
that stretch to infinity
all else are tightly closed into circles;
or semicircles poised to close in.
Their exactness petrifies me.
I avoid them like the bug.
They give me no breathing space.
Instead hold me tight in their fists
to strangle me to death.
From my hands they wriggle and escape
Into a world that only confounds.

I fall for the seductiveness of words
unlimited, non-repetitive, dynamic
I float on the surface of their emptiness
And sink into the depth of their semantics
I walk through their openness
And scratch my head over their ambiguity
While dancing to their cadences.

I use words to my convenience
Twist them if the need arises
For anything from admire to zoom via
despise, love, placate, seduce, or yearn.