Dr. Anuradha Bhattacharyya, INDIA

Exclusive: Best of Women Poetry: Edited by Padmaja Iyengar-Paddy

VIRTUAL REALITY

She enters virtual reality –

In infinitude,

A beautiful loneliness

Welcomes you

Always;

An always imminent departure

Produces courage.

She enters virtual reality –

Lives her life inside

Of a safe environment,

Accompanied by a song.

She enters virtual reality –

Comes into contact with the things she fears;

She lives the story of living

In cyberspace;

An avatar

As it were,

A movable image

Better than ourselves.

Gods, demons, empires, and souls

Represent themselves in virtual reality,

Remaining in a controlled environment

That people design

In hope, which is the opposite of hate.

Dr. Anuradha Bhattacharyya is an Indian writer. She has been awarded the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi's Best Book Award for English Novel of the years 2016 and 2019. She is Associate Professor of English, Postgraduate Government College, Chandigarh.

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Best of Women Poetry -2020 :: Setu, March 2020