Bhoomika Bhatt

“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“Some Hindus have an elephant to show.
No one here has ever seen an elephant.
They bring it at night to a dark room.

One by one, we go in the dark and come out
saying how we experience the animal.
One of us happens to touch the trunk.
A water-pipe kind of creature.

Another, the ear. A strong, always moving
back and forth, fan-animal. Another, the leg.
I find it still, like a column on a temple.

Another touches the curve back.
A leathery throne. Another, the cleverest,
feels the tusk. A rounded sword made of porcelain.
He is proud of his description.

Each of us touches one place
and understands the whole in that way.
The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark
are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.

If each of us held a candle there,
and if we went in together, we could see it.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi, A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings

“You can't live your life for other people. You've got to do what's right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

“I want to commit the murder I was imprisoned for.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban