bhaskar saikia

Love and anger often feel like opposites. One soothes, the other burns. Yet, deep down, they are connected—like two moods of the same river.

A river, in its gentle flow, bends around rocks and obstacles with grace. That is love—soft, tender, willing to adapt. But in the fury of a monsoon, the same river becomes unstoppable, destroying what it once nourished. That is anger—a love that has lost its tenderness and turned wild.

And here lies a strange truth: anger exists only where love exists. If there is no river of love, there can be no flood of anger.

Sometimes, parts of the river break away, forming anabranches—choosing long, lonely paths rather than the main flow. It risks drying up or becoming stagnant. Still, it chooses adventure over safety, experience over certainty. It tells the main river: Your path may be easier, but mine is richer in unknown skies and unseen lands. Isn’t that what we do, too? We stray, we explore, we dare—and sometimes, we hurt those who love us, or feel hurt by them in return.

Water, like love, wears many faces. Heated, it becomes steam—full of kinetic power, enough to move engines and dreams. Frozen, it turns into ice, hard yet sheltering. But it is still the same water. Love, too, transforms: soft in its kindness, fierce in its anger, but always rooted in the same deep source.

Perhaps the lesson is not to fear anger, but to understand it. Beneath every burst of rage is a longing that once was tender. Beneath every silence, a love that still wants to flow. Like rivers, we are strongest not when we crash through, nor when we freeze in place, but when we keep moving—gentle, persistent, alive.