I have been guilty of mistrusting a particular word for quite a long time. To my bafflement, that word never gets dead, goes out of fashion, becomes redundant, and never for once can be totally dismissed. Yes, I am talking about the word: hope--that tiny little worker of the soul. As to why it continues to exist, persist, insist in the times of our depression or gloom, I don't know. That it wouldn't desert us is certain. Like the day and the night, hope too is perhaps an absolute. 

I have watched its wee body taking shape in unspeakable of human conditions, I have seen it grow discreetly in people, including me, to an adequate shape, I have attempted to banish the next lot of hope with solid chunks of logic after seeing the earlier ones die too soon, but I have utterly failed. Every time, they manage to defeat me. Not for once do these little soldiers of light--the hope--leave us undefended. 

And so, I find it easier now to share my space with hope instead of spending huge amounts of my limited energy to negate its invisible existence or to make it go away. I have come to understand that hope is indestructible. I can neither break it nor repudiate its reality even for half a day. I turned a new leaf in the hope of turning another leaf, another leaf, then another leaf, not fearing the barbed grids. 

NB: The digital sketch above has been conceived and drawn by Sriparna Nandy with a Stylus pen.