In the poem “A Doctor’s Journal Entry for August 6, 1945” by Vikram Seth, the narrator, a doctor, was startled by a sudden and intense flash of light followed by another. It was actually the impact of the atomic bomb dropped at Hiroshima, Japan on the said day.

The narrator was perplexed and bewildered by the unnatural brightness and especially seeing the ‘old stone lantern brightly lit’. He initially thought it to be magnesium flares and ‘debated’ within himself for a moment when the roofs and the walls collapsed in debris and dust swirled around him. His initial reaction is one of shock and disorientation as he attempts to make sense of the unprecedented destruction unfolding around him.