“Going into oneself and not meeting anyone for hours – that is where one must arrive at.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

 year ago or so, I read letters to a young poet by 

for the first time. As someone who had only ventured into writing more profusely, with heedful words and chanced upon observations which were too difficult to put to words but the need got the best out of me. I remember sitting without a fan in my room in the torrid heatwaves of Delhi because the sound of the fan caused too much noise and I meant to stay with Rainer’s words with all my sincerity, might and lack of comprehension. Reading, comprehending words and being eloquent in my speech has never been my best pursuit, I started reading too late, and started reading the books I genuinely enjoy only recently, I do not regret the time I spent during my childhood and pre-teens being imaginative, entertaining myself with my own curated follies and vices, and spending time with the very few people I knew. Comprehension of words spoken by people and writers alike has always been difficult not because I didn’t know how to read or to understand the meaning of the words but to grasp the exact words and meaning seemed unnatural, distant because I did not know the experience or the events of life that led to the curation of those words. So as someone who scarcely read or understood what was spoken to them, I for the obvious reason lack eloquence in my speech.

In the very first letter, on page 3 of my copy of the book, I found myself being understood and bewildered at the same time as to how someone so distant, unknown to my being can articulate words that suit me so perfectly, curate sentences that I never could despite having experienced the same exact events and emotions? It made me feel rather incompetent. I had only this one thing in life that was my own – my words, and as it turned out I lacked in that very significant part of my life too. The quote in question is “

things are not as graspable and sayable as on the whole we are led to believe; most events are unsayable, occur in a space that no word has ever penetrated, and most unsayable of all are works of art

, mysterious existence whose life endures alongside ours, which passes away.” As I again read this, it confuses me and satiates me all at once. I have always tethered between elements, never experiencing or feeling the absolute nature of events and words. The quote does give me some understanding that not all we live can be documented in words, and it also makes me feel incredibly stupid as to why I couldn’t decipher this simple working of life and art, the very core of my being?

After finishing the book, I had many thoughts that were unsayable, so I let it be, I promised to come back to it some time in future and perhaps then I could say it. I wrote on the back of the book, like it was my diary and not a book, that perhaps the elements of the book that remained mysterious to me was because I was too inexperienced to truly grasp what Rainer wanted to convey, one such thing was solitude – I was never too alone to be in solitude, to relish in the act of solitary thinking and existing, and I never had too many companies to be an expert on life, which made me a poor judge of the book. A year later, I understand solitude because I have experienced it, and I had an epiphany that I am very childlike, I need things to be apparent, I need to know and witness the existence of all elements of life – feelings and events, for me to understand and comprehend certain words and sentences I read in books or hear in films. A year later I found myself in solitude, with no hindrances from others or life itself, I would sit in the garden on a bench, watch the birds – magpies and black kites, tons of pigeons and camouflaged parrots, I would sneak into places I wasn't allowed in, at times I sat on the bench being very still, no music or books, I would exist in stillness among the gushes of wind and the sound leaves make when chanced upon a high speed wind, I would listen to the birds, trying to identify their sounds, but there would be a magpie in there mimicking others, confusing me still. I found solitude to be nice, not entirely lonesome. I felt more myself when I was still among trees and birds than when I was with people – familiar and strangers alike. I am so loud among my family and friends, always chatting away words, and I am so quiet among my acquaintances, but exactly myself in my solitude.

If your everyday life seems to lack material, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to summon up the riches…

” I thought I needed more of life to happen to me, more adventures perhaps, more something, anything really, I tried to put myself out there for people to pick on, I found them so dull and lacking in being authentic, they seemed to fabricate identities but they did not have the artistry to be believable or even admirable, and so I would feel rather drained and robbed off my own curations and artistry. The thing about authenticity is that it hardly exists, when every element of life seems to be decided for, when we have inculcated influences into our existence to become something or someone, willingly or unwillingly, it seems futile work to search for honesty or even to find one's own identity. People believe what they see to be fashionable, they try to morph themselves into a fancier version that is highly pushed by the media they consume. One only has to be told that something is art or beautiful or admirable for one to believe in it. It’s all narrative, it’s all influence, it’s all someone else’s belief that we keep on reiterating. As it turns out, I comprehended Rainer’s words wrongly, I did not need more life to happen or people, I only needed to exist in a space where I could summon up riches or demons alike.

I have always found insignificance in everything, others life and words, mine as well, mine more than others, what exactly is so important about a stranger’s life or words ? but Rainer says “

” and I agree but still with apprehension, because things are only significant to people because they know it to be true, when written or crafted into art, it ceases to belong to the person who held it to such degree of seriousness and it starts to belong to the people who read it or see it and interpret it to their understanding. There is a difference between knowing and understanding, and that difference creates the height of significance. My words are important to me because it is a reaction of what I have endured and enjoyed, others merely would try to understand the meaning of with accordance to their experience and knowledge, therefore they will never truly know what I meant, unless you are a good writer or even a decent one who writes with precision for others to know the intricacies and happenings of one's world, but I do not consider myself as such.

My only loss from this collection of letters is the loss that comes with translations. What exactly did I lose when I couldn't read the text in the language it was originally written in, in the exact words of the author? It was still incredible, more holy than a gospel, but how devastating it is to not understand the exact words/language of my favorite author. I only hope, each year when I read the letters again like I am receiving them for the first time with my newfound understanding of life and art, which would evolve later for certain, I write a letter like Rainer would actually read it.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this Publication are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of The Jamia Review or its members.

A letter to a poet from a young writer 

Is the Indian audience too sensitive for an honest film bringing the discussions of police brutality, political discourses, caste violence and genocide that has happened in this very country by its own people or the government fears a sound and aware citizens ? In recent years, India has seen bans and censorship of films, lack of artistic freedom and infiltration of political agendas into the art. When films with little to no accuracy are celebrated, and allegorical or biographical films that depict real events and issues of the country are banned or redacted to the point the authenticity and the artistic vision is lost, where does artistic freedom stand in this country then?

In January of 2025, the film Santosh directed by British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri was set to release. The film is set in north India where a widowed woman, Santosh who joins the police force investigates the murder of a young Dalit girl. The film is persistent in its raw portrayal of misogyny, violence against Dalits and the darker side of the Indian Police force. The film was banned in India despite receiving applause internationally.

In July of 2026, another film was taken off by the censor board after the filmmakers struggled for years for its theatrical release. The film is Satluj directed by Honey Trehan starring Diljit Dosanjh.

Satluj which was previously named “Ghalughara”, a historical punjabi term associated with massacre of Sikhs in 1746, 1762 and 1984, by the recommendation of the CBFC then changed to Punjab’95 and now to Sutlej, depicts the life of Shaheed Jaswant Singh Kharla who was a human rights activist. He investigated the cremation of thousands of unidentified bodies that happened in Punjab between the years 1984 to 1994. The film was set to release in 2023 in theaters but after unreasonable cuts and censors recommended by CBFC, the filmmakers found a loophole and released the uncut version on the OTT platform Zee5. The film was taken down shortly in India, while it is still available to watch in other countries.

Media in any form is not merely for entertainment, it inspires, educates and tells stories unheard to us or hidden from us by the government. Now more than ever, censorship and bans across media platforms are increasing– suppression of independent media channels, films documenting corruption of administrative powers, books that pose differences in ideological viewpoints are banned. The country with cultural, lingual, and religious differences every few villages, the same country’s government does not consider differences of challenging and opposing viewpoints in cinemas.

Sutlaj does not oppose the ruling government, it exposes the merkier side of the administration that runs our country. The same administration that is designed and bound by constitution to protect people of this country exploits us at their convenience and to what extent. The film does not diminish or conceal the horrifying truth of genocide of sikhs. Through Jaswant Kharla’s character and his discoveries, it lays out the brutality that was unleashed on the people of Punjab as cleanly as the filmmakers could. This is what makes censorship nowadays; not to protect children from harmful content, not to release communal films like kashmir files or kerala story– no these are the films that are encouraged; and the ones that critique administrative powers and their misuse are banned or censored.

A question that kept coming up was “Why the current government is backing a ban that discusses a genocide that happened in the opposition’s rule?” and the answer to this is the ruling party holds accountability graver administrative misuse. When a film like Maachis by Gulzar can be released in the aftermath of the Genocide, when the wounds were still raw and fresh, when there was a chance of a communal upheaval, then why decades later the film Sutlaj was banned ?

A criticism of the administration is a criticism to the government. When people watch films of police brutality and violence, they will know how corrupt the system was and how corrupt it still is because the acts of violence by the administrative powers never ends. The people, in the present, will see that the situation of our administrative system is still the same, the police still terrorize lower class citizens who have no power or awareness of their rights, they still get harmed physically and psychologically without any justice, at times they are rewarded with more harm than justice.

Police brutality has often been touched upon in Indian cinema, but scarcely does it depict the scale of damage it does to common, ordinary people who cannot withstand an authority with power. When the people of India can suffer the direct result of brutality, discrimination, and violence, then it is granted that the Indian audience can stomach truthfulness and authenticity in cinemas. The bans nowadays are more political than protective. When our freedom of speech and expression is compromised like many other rights, we need to establish firmer codes on which cinema is offensive and which is acceptable.

The Ban on Satluj: can a reiteration of the past be too sensitive for the present audience ?

This article aims to explore the manipulation, corruption and infiltration of humans by the organised system that runs the world. From the very beginning, what we experience, feel, and dream about is monitored and well established by the system. They habituate us to their liking, to benefit in their vices, and we willingly or unwillingly submit before them. The normalised mechanization of human existence and generalized norms result in the lack of individual choices and more in collective submission. The questions of resistance are raised often, but in actuality the act itself seems impossible, and so, only the thought remains. This article is akin to this experience, raising questions, resisting with words, but in practice, despite having answers, the impossibility of it all seems to persist still.


How does one resist the system while being enclosed within it? The organised system is too intricate in its organisation, its formation and execution. Each person serves a purpose in this organisation, and if that person ceases to be useful, they come in abundance, ready to be used to fulfillment– like Ophiocordyceps unilateralis- the parasite infects an ant’s brain, commands the ant to climb to a growth where the fungi can survive and then devours it whole when its purpose is fulfilled. The ordinary people are the ants in this web of the organised system; the system commands us and hollows us out till nothing remains. We resist, we speak, we boycott– but all are bootless cries. We are still inside the system, still in abundance, still serving someone else’s purpose, still quantified into mere numbers rather than human beings.

The organisation begins when, at three years of age, a little child is sent to be “educated” in schools. The children must know the perils of these organisations. They are intuitive, and so they resist (which is smothered in the near future); they cry before they go off to be educated and to be civilised. They rush back home crying still, but are sent back again the next morning and the ordeal is repeated throughout their lives, which they never anticipate, but accept at some point in their childhood. The schools are but mere habituation centres; the children are taught everything unimportant to their survival and everything important to the system that manufactures modern slaves. From very early on, the children learn about the sound of the bells; the school decides when they eat their lunches. They want us to be hungry at the same time, so they can get rid of our hunger altogether, reviving us when they want, starving us because they can. The parents give the rights to their children’s life, character, and what they ought to become, too readily to the organisation, oblivious to the kind of contrivance they will make out of these children. The rules get stricter as the children grow- they are taught obedience, hierarchy, respect, and submissiveness. Even in the smallest of schools, there is a power that the children must show obedience to- the children must stand up in respect when encountered with the power, lower their gazes to not be disrespectful, and always be aware that any sort of rebellion (which might as well be for a basic human right) will be seen as treachery and one can be thrown out of the system (which they never do, they hammer at your knees till they bend). The need to establish hierarchy is the essence of the organised system; without it, the world will collapse (or that’s what they want us to believe). The Principal, teachers, prefects, seniors, juniors and the staff– each play their part of being dominant to the lower levels and submissive to the upper levels, perfecting the act till each individual’s psyche is infiltrated by a collective experience of identity, self-worth, and imagination. They forcefully put you in tiny boxes called classrooms with no room for individual development; all your conundrums have the same roots, all your misery is shared with twenty to forty other people, and so you confide in one another, bond over the shared experience, and acquire a sense of pseudo-collectiveness instead of uniting as individuals to form friendships and relations.

The children are grown-ups now; they have left school– psychologically trained and physically morphed. Now they enter the formulation stages of the system. The college is where it's all decided- who will be formulated into puppets, who will be cast out as rebellious, and who will be the combination of the two– resisting while still benefiting from the system. Presently, we all are in the combination. Most people seem to turn complacent more than they seem to revolt; they have been trained well. The college provides one with more freedom, or rather, a sense of freedom– bells do not ring, you can be late to classes, argue with teachers or be friends with them if you must, roam around the campus, wear what you want, explore yourself, be an individual. All seems very gratifying and freeing at its crux, but the core is still rotten, still controlled and managed by this organised system. More than half of the students graduating from school choose to go into STEM because that is socially acceptable. The remaining students who choose to study a subject from the humanities have rebelled their way into the arts, and now they must excel in order to be relevant. The act of being relevant is in itself a representation of how the organised system formulates the modern slave. First, it is important to the system to keep broilers naked and vulnerable, stripped of any sort of freedom or individuality, and then they proffer you profusely with a sense of freedom, and so you clutch onto the sense for as long as you have it. One becomes oblivious of the consequences when they are in a reverie; the perils are so far beyond the periphery to seek out, and it is so very dreamlike inside the periphery to ever want to get out. The grown-ups in college live in the reverie, tasting joy, joining societies, socialising with peers, living life at last. Some might still be wary of the consequences because they have known too many restrictions to be completely oblivious.

The last stage is execution or utilisation of the manufactured products. And so at twenty-five, the grown ups with all their senses and freedom “choose” to work in the cooperate while fantasizing about opening a small business of their own, earn enough money to acquire a sense of luxury– get a big enough house, eat farm bred meat everyday, buy expensive imported stuff, show off a little, seek the society's validation as to how “successful” they are while still being a chatterbox of how corrupt the government is, how fascist it has become, the advancing monopoly of a certain group of MNCs, and cruelty against minorities (but only when it comes to the sect they belong to). The final product of this organised system is a person who speaks, comprehends words, recognises the perils, critiques the system and is still a slave. They want a sound slave, an intelligent one. A foolish one will be useless; how will the big companies work? The organised system requires the knowledge of the modern slave to still be relevant and to proliferate. And the modern slave knows that they are a slave and are still willing to be one for as long as they are fed crumbs of freedom and life, because they have been habituated well.

The question still persists- how can one take themselves out of the system? How can they cease to be zombies? Do they become outlaws? Spend the rest of their lives in jail, appealing for a trial and getting none? We have enough of those, and the system keeps them in check. Do we reject all forms of organised system, religion, and government entirely? But how will that work out for us? Rejecting the organised system will result in being exiled in a desert with no water, no food, and no people because all that is by the grace of the organised system. Rejecting organised religion will result in being exiled from human connections and mocked for eternity. Rejecting the government is something we often do, but what has come out of it is still very obscure, very stagnant. What we ought to do or think or believe has become something very unnatural and out of the world at this point in time.

What we do in actuality is that we wait, we hold our breaths, and with watchful eyes we search for a change to come by. When we are oppressed, we resist; we revolt at last, a revolution is finally attained, and we repeat the same cycle in a different font a century later. The time gone by- a history of today. What present will be the history of the future? And so the cycle repeats; we perform our parts, the curtains are never drawn.

 is pursuing a Bachelor's degree in English from Jamia Millia Islamia.

Articles by Sufia Siddiqui

A letter to a poet from a young writer

The Ban on Satluj: can a reiteration of the past be too sensitive for the present audience ?

We Know Too Many Restrictions To Be Oblivious Of The Consequences

A letter to a poet from a young writer

The Ban on Satluj: can a reiteration of the past be too sensitive for the present audience ?

We Know Too Many Restrictions To Be Oblivious Of The Consequences