An urban sensibility and a social concern find expression in an evocative poem by Dr Pragya, exclusively for Different Truths.
The memory of my first bus ride is intense I told my mother about everything I had seen about an old man who hurt his knee while boarding the crowded bus and no one showed him, love about the pavement homes made of bamboo, plastic, stones and a lot of stuff is not good enough to sustain the incessant rain about two little boys of my age selling drawing books and pens, pleading men in big cars when the traffic light was red about the men in the yellow helmet who burn and toil and sweat with face emotionless behind the opaque screen that said, ‘work in progress’, about how life is a mechanical process They all were busy with their being I noticed everything But no one cared a damn Today after a decade When I got off the bus I wondered I didn’t see any of these Was no one hurt? Was everyone loved? Was everything good enough? Or even I didn’t give a damn.
Picture design by Anumita Roy, Different Truths
Dr Pragya Bajpai, Ph.D. is a poet, editor, and academic serving at the National Defence Academy, Pune. She is a postgraduate from Lucknow University and has received her PhD in English Literature from Banaras Hindu University, India. She has authored two collections of poems titled A Potpourri of Proverbs (2021) and Conversation on Cue (2023), co-authored with Shefali Nautiyal. She has edited five anthologies celebrating the armed forces.
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Beautiful poem, poignant too. Congratulations!