A Thundercloud Summoned

Monalisa Changkija

“… Yeah, and the widowhood/Of every government/Signs for all to see/I can’t run no more/With that lawless crowd/While the killers in high places/Say their prayers out loud/But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up/A thundercloud”. These are some lyrics of Leonard Cohen’s Anthem, in which, we are informed, he conjures up an image of the mythical breaking of the vessels incapable of containing the sacred splendour. He connects that motif to the mutilated nature of human beings – traits that ironically endear us to what’s holy, according to Cohen’s art about its spiritual significance. Leonard Cohen’s Anthem is also said to be a poignant reflection on the state of the world, a world marred by conflict, betrayal and disillusionment. Yet, it’s not a poem of despair. Instead, it’s a carefully crafted anthem of hope, resilience and the enduring power of love.

Perhaps we can see a reflection of the above quoted lyrics of Cohen’s Anthem in the world around us? But that would depend on our world views, shaped by our biases and prejudices, the political, economic, social, cultural and religious dogmas and affinities we cling to and the ignorance we wear like a badge of honour therefore our refusal to look at what we don’t believe exist, wouldn’t it? To further quote Cohen’s Anthem, “…Ah, the wars they will be fought again/The holy dove, she will be caught again/Bought and sold, and bought again/The dove is never free.” Today’s news says the dove is not free and so we too are not free. And, we won’t be till we set the dove and ourselves free. The only way we can do that is to be human and unambiguously etch our human-ness so that nothing and nobody can divest it from us.

Unmistakably, almost anywhere across the globe, history, laws, norms and conventions are increasingly written and rewritten to strengthen the state and corporates enabling and facilitating them to tighten their vice-like grip on the people ~ not to empower the people, despite avowals and assurances. Either we are too blind to see this or too numb to care. Our identities, cultures and traditions have been commoditised as employment and income generating avenues but we don’t realize that we have been reduced to mere show pieces. Our land, our resources and our age-old nature-nurturing practices have been negated by ‘development’ and our abodes are submerged by fetid floods that incessantly prey on our bodies. Increasingly, a vast majority of us are being marginalized, peripheralised and victimised in an alarmingly technologised world and we don’t know if the person sitting next to us in a public conveyance is a real human being or an AI-generated creature or whether we have been de-enfranchised from our existence. The list, of course, increases by the day.    

In this list is another concerning item ~ we really don’t know the veracity of the news we consume hungrily day in and day out, minute by minute. Heck, we don’t even know where and how most of the news we consume are generated. But we know why the news we consume, whether AI generated or by acquiescent ‘journalists’, are forced down our throat. A completely subservient and controlled media is any ruler and/or corporate’s dream come true and the most prized possession. Once the mind and heart are coerced into subservience and totally controlled, land and its resources are easily controlled by seemingly sweet sounding narratives that are delivered in high pitches by the controlled media. So, while we cling to our illusions of free speech and expression, the independent media is becoming a myth, as ‘uncontrollable’ and inconvenient truth-tellers are pushed to the edge; even pushed down the edge. The murders of journalists in Gaza, for instance. Rare is a ruler who can welcome a messenger, much less face a truth-teller.

Perfection is a human ideal and in pursuing it, often the very raison d’etre is either forgotten or sidelined begging the question ‘perfection for what and for whom?’ The powers-that-be are constantly churning out changes by way of revising, revamping, re-editing, recasting and rewriting laws ostensibly for national interest. But can national interest be isolated from the people? The new, the change, the progress and the development appear to be hazardous for the people as they ghettoize us into small silos of hatred, race, religion, culture and the like. Are these exercises of exclusion and division necessary to serve national interest keeping in mind that national interest must fundamentally connote the people’s interest? It is difficult to understand the concept and rationale of protecting an internally caged people ~ much like an un-free dove ~ from external foes, as much as it is difficult to understand protection and development of land and its resources by alienating and excluding the people from accessing them. What happens now to the much hyped interlinked global economy and an inter-dependent world by say Donald Trump’s policy of inhuman deportation of immigrants and punishing tariffs and the similar variants seen elsewhere ~ near and far? 

These thoughts would probably come across as muddled and they may well be so however we live in an extremely muddled world wherein nothing makes sense anymore. All that we believed in, worked for and cherished are being brushed off as obsolete, irrelevant and unfeasible but those were exactly the very beliefs that led to constant altering maps and endless migrations for centuries, weren’t they? True, the old must pass to make way for the new but what is the shape of the new that is taking place now? This is crucial because it is difficult to run “With that lawless crowd/While the killers in high places/Say their prayers out loud/But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up/A thundercloud”.  Because “the wars they will be fought again/The holy dove, she will be caught again/Bought and sold, and bought again/The dove is never free.”  And if the dove is never free, we too are never free.      

                We are seeing the unmistakable dismantling of democracy and humans negated in what is surprisingly still known as the ‘free world’ ~ most alarming. The irony is that democracy is used and abused to dismantle democracy in parliaments and palaces and what we thought were institutionalized democratic spaces. Still, as Cohen lyrics say: “Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack, a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.” And it is these cracks we must treasure, embrace and never stop searching because being human means living in light, not in the darkness of professed perfection.  

 (The Columnist is a journalist and poet. Published in the August 26, 2025 issue of Assam Tribune)