# Degrees of Separation

- Link: https://writersworkshopindia.com/2017/07/17/degrees-of-separation/
- Published: 2017-07-17T18:37:03+00:00
- Author: shuktara

5/5 - (3 votes)

**Author:** Nilesh Mondal[](https://writersworkshopindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/WP_20170717_14_40_24_Pro.jpg)
**
Pages:** 108 **Year of Publication:** 2017 **Price:** Rs 200 **ISBN: **978-93-5045-
155-7 (9789350451557)

_**About the Author**_
 Born in 1993, Nilesh Mondal grew up in Asansol, West Bengal.
An undergraduate in engineering by choice, he stumbled onto poetry by chance. His
works have been published in various magazines and e-journals such as _Bombay Literary
Review, Café Dissensus, Muse India, Inklette, Kitaab_ and _Coldnoon Travel Poetics_.
He works as a writer for Terribly Tiny Tales. This is his first book of poetry.

_**Teaser**_

_Death certificate of an ordinary armyman_

The jawan arrives home
 Fresh from war Covered from head to toe in sheets that smell
of mothballs. At the throat of his _mohallā_ The coffin-bearing car stops.

And a crowd of hands rush forward
 To touch his feet.

They never noticed his face.

The jawan studied in the corner class of a_ pāthshālā_ for twelve years
 But no 
classmate remembers his voice Or how his hand rose in questions. The jawan failed
class 9 twice But no teacher remembers His cries for help His inability to memorize,
how algebra unfolds.

The jawan fought in thirty battles and three and a half wars
 The jawan fired forty
thousand rounds of bullets in a lifetime The jawan was bedridden for twenty-seven
months But his relatives never asked whether the air was too thin at Siachen Whether
he had contracted dengue in Bangladesh Whether all his friends returned home every
vacation.

The jawan died unnamed
 Government reports say.

But his name has since been mentioned
 While murdering a teacher While bludgeoning
a father While arresting homosexuals While imprisoning college students.

And every time his name is taken,
 In vain, And in violence The jawan turns a little,
Uncomfortably, In his mothball-smelling coffin.

_**Contents**_
 43 poems