Creation and Criticism

Pradyumn Mishra is an engineer turned student of English Literature. Currently, he is doing research from Bhopal University. He likes to teach and love to write, thus aspiring to be a teacher and a writer. He often publishes his writings on his Instagram page @penningpradyumn. He can be contacted at pradyumn.mishra21@gmail.com.

1. Memories

If you don’t want me, to be in your life,

I will not chase after you,

Although I would desperately want to.

I will not beg for your attention,

Although I would like to have all of it, All through my day.

I will not suffocate you,

With insistence of any sort,

Although I would have ample to insist for.

Rather, I will grant you your space.

Will let you be there without peeping in,

Against your permission,

And will let you live without me,

If you want so to be.

For I believe in giving space,

For I believe in mutual satisfaction,

For I believe in spontaneous attraction,

And especially,

For I don’t believe in being an unwanted book,

In the bookshelf of someone whom I deeply adore.

I will not follow,

Doesn’t imply that I will turn around,

And will walk away.

I will rather stand still,

And will watch you walking away.

I will watch you through the eyes,

Brimming with the expectation,

That you will turn around,

And that you will speak with your eyes,

That it has been long without me,

And that you no longer feel,

That you don’t want to find me around.

And then your eyelids will meet,

And will cause a blink,

And that blink would be a call for me.

“Come!” It would say.

And then I will run,

Overloaded with fun,

And with the vigour,

That may never come to an end.

And then I will stop,

And will look at you,

To confirm, if I got you the way, You wanted me to.

And then the lateral widening of your lips,

Shaping into what we call ‘smile’,

Will make me a ‘Fish’,

Dropped back into the water.

And even if you do not turn around,

I will keep looking at you,

Till you go beyond the limit of my vision.

And will wait at the very same place,

Looking in the very same direction,

Till the dust,

(which your feet had launched in the air,

while they were taking you away from me)

Loses its vigour,

And settles on the floor.

I will not be sorry,

But will start living,

With the memories you were in.

And will rather be happier,

For your memories unlike you,

Will never hurt me anymore.

They shall be with me always,

For never to fade away,

For never to walk away.

I carry this message in these,

That the memories are far better than,

Of whom they are.

For the people do change,

But not do the memories.

They will be as they were,

And they shall be as they are.

2. A Damage Beyond Repair

In this globe round,

Very few meet another few,

And out of them,

Only ‘a few’ find a connection: Linking their hearts;

Adding life to their lifeless years,

With sweetness of some sort,

That makes their mere existence: A Living

Why do we not, preserve those few?

Who once lost, can never be regained;

Who once leave, shall never return;

And even if return,

Shall have not the same eyes,

Same heart and the same heart-beat.

The intensity shall turn into artificiality,

And the effortless exchanges shall become laboured ones.

So my dear!

Learn from the pages of past,

And let not happen,

What has always happened.

Let that sweetness remain intact,

And let not the music of the moment die down.

Do all that you can,

But let them leave not!

For if so happens,

That would be a damage beyond repair!

3. This Too Shall Pass

When grief outdoes the strength of spine,

And rum not helps, nor beer nor the wine;

When the aching heart denies to throb,

And clouds of eye shed drop dropdrop;

To your heart, you tell the future following!

To your eyes, you show the future following!

Days go by and the feelings wear off,

Comes to a stop that endless scoff.

"Adieu" say you to your sleepless nights,

Fade away into air, those tearful sights.

Just as good is next man on the street,

Once who made your heart skip a beat.

Draw you in that delightful fresh air,

Sail you off far into that somewhere.

Blend you in that cheerful crowd,

No more you curl up and cry out loud.

If with only a thing you wanna walk away,

Not too many but only a thing I shall say:

The tears have a tendency to dry,

Just as damps the echo of a cry.

Pain is chilling but soon will it be warm,

Just brace yourself and wait out the storm.

4. The Laughing Lips

They were all around,

And in the middle she was.

They laughed too loud,

For how fat she was.

She grabbed her bag tight upon her lap,

And tried to look out of the window,

As far as she could,

As if with her eyes,

She was trying flee,

As if with her eyes,

She was trying to distance herself,

From the group of "Humans"

Whom she had just started to abhor.

While her eyes were trying to find

A place too far,

Her vision got blurred,

And then the cheeks got wet.

It's not that just her eyes dropped tears,

But somewhere inside her,

Her heart had bled. And bled even harder,

For it was stabbed for no reason.

For it was trampled upon for no reason.

Deep in her heart,

She felt as if she was the ugliest,

Although she was not.

She felt as if she was utterly useless,

Although she was not.

She felt as if she was alone,

Despite being amid the masses.

She felt as if why did she exist at all?

She felt as if what for to exist at all?

By this time,

Wheels (of the bus) had already turned a mile,

And the wind blowing by her,

Had already wiped off her tears.

Her cheeks had dried and so had her eyes,

But her heart had suffered an injury,

The injury that was a damage beyond repair.

She was hardly blinking.

She was hardly where she actually was.

She was still lost somewhere.

She was lost for a duration that was unknown,

Or probably... We had lost her forever!

Yes, I said, "a duration that was unknown",

For I got my Gudiya's face across my vision.

Me and she had been in the same womb,

And so I call her mine.

She has got lost somewhere,

And know we not: for how long?

Will she ever return or not?

Will she ever be as she was?

Will that gleam of her eyes,

And that glare of her face,

That fascination for fashion,

Shall ever be her own?

Nothing we know!

She sits, quiet upon the bed,

And looks at the wall without a blink.

And my mother sits upon the floor,

And looks at her,

With her palm upon her face,

And the eyes with a constant gaze.

She looks at her,

Without water in her eyes,

For now she drops not the tears,

For to weep with tears,

Is an activity quite common,

But to weep without them,

Marks the presence of a pain,

Which has settled deep down in the heart,

And seems not in a situation to say,

"Adieu!" forever.

For my father,

The streets of the town,

Are cosier than the cushions of his home.

Returns he not, for hours together,

For the fear of facing those lifeless eyes: The eyes of his daughter.

A home has turned into grave,

Three lives are at stake,

Just for the sake of the laughter of the few:

Those few who wanted to laugh,

Wanted to laugh out loud,

Upon a girl too timid,

A girl too timid, to take that mockery.

That laughter echoed in her ears,

Louder and louder, for days and years,

Finally damping into the silence of my home.

A similar laughter has echoed minutes ago,

And the similar lips have enjoyed a show.

Congratulation!

For I guess we have got another one!

Another home!

Another father!

Another mother!

And another daughter!

O you, the bearer of those laughing lips,

Yes! To thee I speak! And to thee I beg!

Kindly pave not the way, for a train of tears,

Which shall run, not for a day or two, but for years.

Kindly laugh not at the cost of those smiles,

Which are sweeter than a thousand of shores and a million of isles.

5. Words

More often than not,

The eloquence of the tongue,

Has been mistaken as the greatness of the one,

Whose glory it sings,

Whose action it defends.

History stands witness,

Of how the devils have wormed their way,

Into the affection of the commons,

Through an elegant arrangement of the words.

For the words have power,

To make look darkness like the light,

And devil just as bright.

An orator is like a beautiful girl,

Who wraps her arm around a man,

Draws him closer,

Runs her fingers through his hair,

Brushes her lips softly across his cheek,

Goes on to nuzzle his ears and whispers into them, her wish.

And the man with his eyes closed,

Thinks nothing but "Yes!",

Utters nothing but "Yes!"

So does the orator,

Not with the body but merely through his words.

To her you said "Yes", for him you clap and you cheer.

So, whenever words begin to take over your ability to reason,

Stand straight, stuff your hands into your pockets,

Take in a deep breath,

Look straight into the eyes of the source of those words and say:

“Just because you are convincing,

Doesn't imply that you are right as well."

As good as pushing away that girl and saying,

"I'll think about it, honey!"

The message is not that,

One should turn a deaf ear to all that sounds sweet.

But the idea is to separate the sweetness and then see,

if the sound still remains sweet?

Beauty, be it of words, be it of skin,

Should be enjoyed,

But can never be allowed to cloud one's judgement,

For its purpose is to please, not to persuade.