PRELUDE TO A NEW DAY

Prelude to a New Day

It’s early in the morning

and a chill wind blows,

as it has blown all night

across the fishing village of Uran.

Eucalyptus, bougainvillea, water palm

and date bloom in the garden of the resort.

From light green to yellow to brown,

colours soothe my mind.

Each leaf opens to the sunlight and breeze,

which brings news of what goes on around us,

the present; the past is already chronicled

within each plant in DNA[i], RNA and ribosomes;

each movement of the universe

and nebulae neighbours written in code we

have yet to decipher: dots and dashes,

curves and swirls[ii], in a language the

spirit of the organism we call Earth obeys.

We carry within us such data as

would flood and burst the largest

data warehouse[iii] or lake[iv].

[i] DNA stores genetic information; RNA transports and translates these coded instructions; while ribosomes are the cellular machinery that assembles proteins based on these instructions.

[ii] The double helix structure of the DNA macromolecule found in cells.

[iii] Data Warehouses are centralized repositories that are used for fast analytics and querying of large volumes of data.

iv Data Lakes are storage systems that hold vast amounts of raw data, both structured and unstructured.

Sandeep Girish Bhatnagar studied literature at the University of Bombay (Mumbai) and plans to carry our research on aspects of Indian Writing. His work has been published in various literary journals such as Scene 4, Himal, Euphony, Shakespeare (a magazine), Kavya Bharati and Avatar Review (an online journal). He is a professional seafarer and holds a Foreign Going Master’s Certificate of Competency. He is also a licensed Advocate and is currently working on a book on Maritime Law.