Cries and Whispers

Pranav Kumar writes a poem inspired by Bergman’s Cries and Whispers.

2 min read

There’s a woman spitting blood
A red stained white kerchief
The red stands out on the blue cigarette box
I pause
Thoughts lead me to the sickest of the sisters from Cries and Whispers
The one who always cried out helplessly
Often bleeding profusely
Who ran out of life even before she ran out of blood
Thoughts lead me to my brother now
The one with three sooty dots on his left arm
I remember him telling me that his one arm was shorter than the other
How could that possibly be?
He raised them both to his chest
Almost like the one-arm-distance in a morning assembly’s jest
They were queerly unequal
His hands aren’t hanging from his torso anymore
Though he once was
I remember the three dots vividly
Equidistant
Carefully placed by his own cigarette
The cigarette must’ve burnt away
But the memory hasn’t.


About the author

Pranav Kumar Radhakrishnan is a writer and film student at Prague Film School. His top priority is always to get through a day meeting as few people as possible, staying indoors, reading, writing, or watching as many movies as he can. He enjoys travelling too. He believes that nothing inherently has meaning and it is up to us to create value in what we do. He is currently working on his final diploma project in Prague and is eagerly waiting to go back to India to make movies in Tamil, about the place he knows best! View his portfolio here.

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