Absurdity
By: Sai Pradhan
Artist Statement: I adopted a dog who lived in a cage as a breeder creature, who had likely never seen the sun or grass. His teeth were rotting, his frame was emaciated, his vocal cords were cruelly severed leaving his throat scarred, and he had a hernia. We fixed him up as best as we (and our vet) could. He cried for months through the night as he tried to figure out day from night, until one day, after I picked him up to hug him close for what seemed like the millionth time at 2 a.m., he decided to fall in love with me. I love him madly. I live in a mix of deep joy and fear: my heart is so full that this little beast wants to live attached to me, but it feels pre-emptively broken knowing that he’s hardly in the best of health, and dogs have short life spans compared to humans as it is. Being conscious of being a frail life form on this rock we call home, building a life with hopes and dreams and desires when things can go off piste any time no matter what we do, adopting old dogs with health issues and loving them madly, planning something - anything really - is all absurd. And yet, the only way to go on is to be present, to try, and to feel it all. If you’ve read the text that accompanies some of my other work, you might know I find value in the work of Albert Camus. His Sisyphus goes onwards and upwards with full knowledge of the absurdity. That knowledge is the power that fuels him. “The struggle,” Camus writes, “is enough to fill a man’s heart.” That is the thing of it all. I shall hug my dog close, knowing this absurdity, and in spite of it.
Sai Pradhan is an Indian American writer and artist who lives in Hong Kong. Her writing has been published in The Iowa Review, ANMLY.org, Ligeia magazine, Litro UK, Litro USA, Vagabond City Lit, Sleepingfish, South China Morning Post’s Style, Hong Kong Free Press (opinion column), and NB. She has publications forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Door=Jar, Moss Puppy, and Sublunary Review. Her art is featured in literary and art journals and has been nominated for Best of the Net. She exhibits with galleries from time to time. Sai has a BA in International Affairs from George Washington University and a Masters in International Law from the University of Edinburgh.IG I Website