Home > Work > Litost: Sliced Stories
1 " Once a human body crosses the line of guilt, it yearns to cross the line over and over again, for just like mind, the body forms its own memories and in those memories, it misinforms itself about the pain of guilty conscience as pleasure. "
― Samir Satam , Litost: Sliced Stories
2 " Everything feels utopian at some point or another. The ideas we have accepted today felt utopian in the previous era. If reformers would have given up their 'fight to abolish Sati' as an utopian idea, we would have never gotten rid of the practice. The question is; how far is our generation ready to go against the grain, when we see injustice happening in our day? Are we ready to introspect, why the idea of brotherhood across religious and caste lines feels utopian and radical today? "
3 " The trouble begins when a group of people are conditioned in different ways to believe that their heritage is superior to that of others. That is a dangerous kind of conditioning, especially in a country like ours that has a shared heritage. However, many people have convinced themselves about the supremacy of their mythologies over the ideas that their mythologies are trying to convey. So, while our epics warn us against arrogance, we embody the same arrogance to promote our religions. In a way, that is self-defeating. Many of us are stuck up in stagnancy of pride over our heritage, without taking the pain of diving deeper in ancient ideas to understand the essence of those epics. Only if we did, we would realize that in almost every country, majority of the population is brainwashed to commit the same mistake that their holy books warned them against, while ironically celebrating mythological as well as historical figures with empty hero worship. "
4 " Struggle is necessary and will stay constant. Power is illusionary, as it keeps changing hands over the time. "
5 " I am not a visitor. I am more of a trespasser, interested in secret little deaths of people who think they are alive, people who are inching towards death with each breathing moment, people who don't realize that life is just a temporary phase of a long journey, like I never did when I was alive, people who will soon become trespassers like me. Why do I think that this phase of trespassing is permanent? Maybe I too am just as stupid as these humans to think I am wiser than them! "
6 " Tenderness is as much a curse as it is a boon. "
7 " Words touch him in ways, this air, this water, this earth haven't been able to. They touch him in ways only something like love or heartache can do. Something miniscule in the air erupts into something too large for his vision to comprehend. On the surface of his skin, goosebumps sprout, while he watches them rising in wonder. Unable to bear the lightness with which that music carries dense spirits of something as intangible as time, he glides away from the rock and flees from the song. "
8 " Thoughts are barbaric creatures. They have the power to kill us, bring us back to life and kill us all over again. And each time we think, this is the end, the malicious bottom of the pit gives way. You keep wishing for it to end, but it never does... the pain goes on and on, from knees, to your gut, to your heart, and upwards till it reaches your throat and sets up a camp there. "