Shaleen Rakesh

  The forest began speaking in a different voice when the last person went home. Towards evening, the familiar sounds slowly faded. The laughter of children returning from school disappeared along the footpath. Women carrying bundles of fodder emerged from the trees and made their way towards the village. The ringing of a shepherd's bell grew fainter as the flock rounded the hillside. Even the woodcutter's axe fell quiet. For a brief moment, the forest seemed to hold its breath. Then another day began. The first to appear were the birds that prefer the fading light. Their calls were fewer but carried farther through the cooling air. A squirrel made one last hurried journey along a branch before vanishing into its nest. Somewhere deeper in the woods, a barking deer gave its sharp, uncertain cry. As darkness gathered, moths replaced butterflies, and the patient work of the night quietly began. Most visitors imagine that forests are busiest during the day because that is w...

At first glance, the young woman crossing the street seems to be wearing a joke. But the line on her shirt carries more than humor: “I always arrive a little late, like the truth.”   That feels familiar. Clarity often comes after the moment has passed — after the argument, after the wound, after the chance to speak cleanly has gone. We laugh because the line is true in a way that stings. Truth is closer to weather: shifting, gathering, breaking, clearing. What we call truth often changes as memory reshapes our experiences. A trauma revisited years later may not match the raw fact of what happened years ago— but that does not make it false. It only means we are now able to recognise what the event felt like from the inside. That is where the old problem of perspective begins. In Rashomon, truth is not one thing sitting at the centre, waiting to be found. It breaks into pieces, each reflecting a different need, fear, or desperation. Nietzsche suspected as much: there is no view from ...

The window frame cuts the scene cleanly — a line drawn between stage and real life. A man and woman stand side by side: skin, ribs, breath. They look outwards, and there is no performance. No heroes pose or theatrical vulnerability in their nakedness. We only see exposure, quiet and unadorned. And yet the image refuses to stay neutral. The moment the eye settles on the woman, something quickly changes. That change is the point. The man’s shirtlessness is ordinary, invisible — the kind of thing we barely register on a hot afternoon or during physical labour. The woman’s identical lack of covering carries a different charge though. It asks a question the man’s body is never made to ask. John Berger once wrote that men act while women appear — more precisely, that women are trained to watch themselves appearing. This image interrupts the habit. The woman is not embarrassed, apologetic, or conscious of being out of place. She stands with the same ease as the man beside her, which can be un...