bhaskar saikia

Somewhere beyond our fields and cities, far from the quiet places where morning tea is sipped and children wake up for school, a fire has been lit.

It is not the kind of fire that warms or nourishes. It is one that devours. A fire that begins with men in suits and uniforms, in language sharpened into threats, in coordinates punched into systems, and finally, in the hush that comes just before an explosion. And though it burns far away, its heat travels fast—across markets, through headlines, into the pulses of oil and gold and fear.

But this is not new. We have seen this pattern before: provoke, defend, retaliate, mourn. What is new, perhaps, is how familiar it all feels. As if we’ve grown fluent in war’s vocabulary, even when we yearn for peace’s silence.

The world is not ending. But something essential in us wears thin each time we edge closer to ruin.

Because while some men argue over power, others argue over bread. While machines hum with precision, hearts everywhere ache with uncertainty. While maps shift in the hands of the powerful, children still ask the same small questions: Will there be school tomorrow? Why do people fight?

And yet, I believe—perhaps stubbornly so—that humanity is not doomed. That in the shadow of every fire, there is still someone planting seeds, writing poems, playing music, falling in love, or whispering stories to calm another’s fears. We are not defined only by the wars we wage, but also by the dreams we protect in spite of them.

If this is a turning point, let it turn us inward—not to retreat, but to remember. What kind of world are we choosing, not just for ourselves, but for those who come after? Are we to remain a species that dances at the edge of its own destruction? Or can we, with all our flaws, imagine something better—something slower, kinder, more awake?

There is still time to be gentle with the earth, with each other, with the silence between headlines.

Because every fire, no matter how fierce, eventually burns out.

And what remains… is up to us.