What the Media Cannot Explain 

The television is certain. 

The YouTube channels are certain. 

The cover pages of dailies and weeklies are certain. 

Maps appear. 
Arrows move. 
Experts speak in freshly ironed voices. 

They say strategy. 
They say history. 
They say regional balance. 

Infographics bloom— 
colours, numbers, projections, 
possible futures. 

Nothing makes sense. 

As the camera wanders, 

there— 

a school bag 

 
resting against a low concrete edge 
on a stretch of tarmac. 

Everything else on the screen 
blurs. 

The bag is small. 
Fabric printed with cheerful patterns 
meant for a morning of classes. 

It must have been packed 
not long ago. 

A notebook carefully placed. 
A pencil sharpened. 
Perhaps a lunchbox 
wrapped in foil. 

Somewhere, earlier that morning, 

a child must have tugged 
those straps over her shoulders, 

complained about homework, 
run out of a doorway, 

lace loose, 
late for the bell. 

Perhaps she had planned 
to show a drawing to a friend, 

a butterfly  

coloured in bright yellow red and black. 

The media keeps explaining the war. 

But all the history, 
all the strategy, 
all the certainty 

cannot explain 

why a school bag 
sits alone on a road, 

its straps fallen open, 

its bright cloth 
darkened 

 
and stiff 

with blood. 

**  

(Kamalakar Bhat is a bilingual writer, translator & professor of English. His published work includes a volume of essays by Kirtinath Kurtkoti, which he edited & translated)