Goutam Roy

 The Broom  and the Broken Dawn  Through the cracked walls, the sun peeps in, calling the child to leave his bed. The child lies still, clutching his shabby pillow, the one his mother had placed beside him before leaving for work. He does not know why she has gone, nor can he escape the weight of the day. From washing utensils to grazing the cows, his little hands must labour to keep the household alive. At last, he leaves his bed, bidding farewell to the fragile dreams that sheltered him through the night. His mother is already at her master's house, working for a living. The child stares at the waiting broom— hollow eyes, a sickly face, and a childhood that never wakes. By Goutam Roy 

 The Auction of Merit Time flows on, painting infinite pictures upon the canvases of existence. Sometimes, it breathes life into weary souls; sometimes, it unleashes fury, leaving devastation in its wake. Beneath the shadows of a hollow creed, tender minds are caged, their eyes forgetting the difference between darkness and light. In the examination hall, where merit should shine, deceit wears the crown. They rejoice in hollow triumph, parade in stolen laurels, while the sanctity of learning fades into oblivion. Here, merit is auctioned, conscience silenced, and fraudulence disguised as achievement. The gifted sons of learning weep in silence, their dreams eclipsed by the undeserving who rise on borrowed wings. Yet time moves forward, unmasking the faces behind those stolen laurels. Some will enter the temple of education, entrusted with young minds; others will ascend the chariots of power, gripping the reins of a future built on deceit. And somewhere, beneath the dust of their ho...

 Beyond the Walls of Silence Treated as flowers, they are plucked before their time, their hidden nectar drained by unseen hands— age after age, generation after generation. They swallow their anguish, their lips sealed against protest, learning to survive in the narrow dens society has built for them. Beyond the threshold of light, they dwell in inherited darkness, where even the bread of life is divided unequally, and duty becomes the chain that binds their dreams. Their talents lie buried, their wings remain folded, their footsteps restrained by invisible walls. Under the weight of domination, they count their allotted days beneath the same vast sky. Yet something stirs within their captive minds— a restless wind, a silent rebellion, a longing to tear apart the net that holds them captive. The river does not wait for permission to flow; it carves its passage through the stubborn earth. So, too, feminism rises, lifting its hood against injustice, its voice demanding what should n...

 The Poison Elixir  An empty sky holds the full moon— a loaf of silver beyond the reach of the hungry. Below, restless minds drink from a darker sea, where every wave promises forgetting. At the threshold, a mother keeps a lamp awake. A father counts the hours, listening for footsteps the night refuses to return. Day after day, the body becomes a silent battlefield— disease entering softly, laying its patient road toward an unnamed dawn. Beyond the shadows, the merchants arrive with their glittering bottles, casting wider nets across empty pockets, broken dreams, and minds already heavy with winter. The mothers hide their tears behind closed doors. The fathers wait for a mercy that has forgotten their address. And somewhere inside the sleepless dark, a wounded voice rises— thin as a dying star— then disappears before the world can hear it. By Goutam Roy 

 The Ancient Fire In search of a panacea, birds enter gilded cages, thirsting for a drop to soothe their parched throats. Yet the wheel of destiny turns according to its own law. Beneath the wheels of chariots, they are grounded— chariots driven at maddening speed by megalomaniac charioteers, racing through the tender garden of the domestic world, crushing young buds before they have learned to bloom. And still, this primordial instinct survives even in the Gen-Z age; the ancient fire of violence glows behind gilded doors, hidden beneath the veneer of civilized life. Let the dragon's flame be quenched— before another tender bud is silenced before it ever blooms. By Goutam Roy