What shall it profit a man?

Bygone days had swifter wings

That flied over the assorted lands

And brought the harmonious peace

To tune the music and the gong.

But present borrowed mind is leaning

Forward and backward

Backward and forward

Out and in

In and out

Of the closed room.

No knock, no sound, no stem

Comes from the crowded corridor

After a wavering noise of unbreakable syllables

After the heterogeneous mouth’s utterance

After the pronounced morpheme

From the outside room.

The inside room quivers

In fear, in horror it shudders.

On the bed mind struggles

Struggles and cracks, aches and breaks

Breaks and shakes

For no hand comes to weave

The torn fabric in silent peace.

Winning, defeating, defeating and winning

It runs its own spinning

Of worn out fabric like man made machine

Of iron and steel, of hardest wheel.

I have no rest. We have no rest.

Where should I go now? Where shall I run?

Shall I go to a bookstall or to station?

Or shall I take an aspirin and rest in oscillation?

What shall I do?

What shall we ever do?

Get up at five and on the bed at ten.

And if hungry, a satisfying lunch

And if thirsty, few drops of filtered water

And if no work at seven in the evening

Either a boasting chat or fifty-two playing cards

And if free at nine in the night

 The cosmic news on the screen

And if no sleep at twelve in the midnight

A man of full ambivalence.

We do our formal routine

With respected mind and cunning brain

With cunning brain and respected mind

Like a tired desire of the oldest kind.

The world treads searching

The sense from nonsense

Like a poor young maid

Collecting wastes and fuel

Fuel and food

To us also feed just to the full.

This time offers no rest.

No rest to rest in peace

Except the duty and routine and daily an aspirin.

What shall it profit?

What shall it profit a man

If he wins the whole world

And loses his own soul.
                                 © Written by Manoj Kumar Mishra