Facts And Fiction—a Bouquet Poem by Aniruddha Pathak

A lady of fertile, fiction-filled head gets killed
By a ghastly fellow called fact!
She when in an inquest gets grilled,
Confesses, ‘I care hoots for heinous act’!
The jury was justly divided still:
Some felt, facts were juvenile like a child,
Some felt senile and too old-styled,
Sure, truth oft is a bitter pill.

***
O fact, let me play with the child in you,
Let me cherish thine notions old and new,
Let me follow wherso you lead,
Be it abyss, or I learn naught indeed!

***
The world of facts nestled by many a rare bird
Silent does sing a song unheard;
And yon when sings a familiar bird,
Born of head to heart’s satisfaction,
Whom world of facts would call fiction,
And call it even absurd,
While world of fiction oft reacts
Pointing to, ah ‘fatal futility of facts1’!

***
But facts are no flowers stray
Picked up to praise, for applause,
For prayers on a personal cause,
They go together in a bouquet;
But no use ‘tis a bouquet to make
Of fiction stray trying facts to fake!

***
Not always can ignorance seal man’s mind,
Nor can a soaring mind freedom find,
Mind loves freedom when well stirred,
Facts to mind free— one type of bird,
And fiction, a wide open world;
A freed mind when takes off to soar
To farthest shore, goes deeper to the core,
How I wish the twain comes to meet!
But know not where on a one-way street.

And yet, one must search for a meeting point—
For facts and fiction, be it pub or joint,
I would then want them to drink to get drunk,
Such that the truth between the two gets sunk.

Let these dream birds thence search
To find a common perch,
Where fantasy of heart
Fuses seamless to make a work of art,
Where fiction has faith in the morrow
Of facts, their withered past to follow.

***
If a man nowhere is amidst all facts,
Nowhere burns his mind’s fertile flash,
Nowhere in wonder acts, nor e’er reacts,
When facts cast none of their magic spell,
They to him be good as trash—
Bricks piled on to make a prison cell!

The truth of facts a way to glory,
On its own does reveal no story,
Till someone comes to coax them to reveal;
But, truth too soars upon wings of fiction,
Helped by the tailwinds of conviction,
And in storms loses even keel.

***
Some facts get stuck in foggy sky
Some stay rooted to solid ground—
Stay firm, substantial as sound,
While fiction takes to wings to fly;
Yet, facts on surface be one thing,
When on go, ah what a bird on wing!

***
Take facts and stir them hard as whole
And drive deep enough a hole,
To reach the core where lies their soul,
And there, there lies my friend thy goal.

***
Yea, ‘facts are stubborn things’2,
And fiction that no spring brings,
Is not it a strange thing?
Man is left twixt the twain ever to swing!

***
Facts often but raw materials furnish
To cook dishes not well defined,
And fiction gives condiments to garnish,
For serving to a credulous mind!

***
Knowledge is dresst with varied fact,
And tailored is by intellect;
Belief it is that nothing wears,
Comes her dignity from the faith it airs.

Brute facts! Thou art worst foe
Of human heart’s sole hope,
But I shall still with ye go,
And give thee a long rope.

No facts to me
O sacred be,
None are profane,
And none too sane;
But all these opinions
Are dresst the way are onions,
And man’s fancy notions
Too vague, too queer,
Like female face lotions,
Soon as are applied, disappear!

Yet, give me fiction mothered by intellect,
And sired O by a weighty fact!

***
First take your facts from a proper port,
Honest, as is and whereso is,
And then you can them much distort
O much as you so please3;
But with them fiction, there’s much ease:
In cold blood you cavil, ne’er would they sneeze!

***
The facts when with self weight are sunk,
The fiction nods the nod of a monk:
‘We never sink, e’en when dead drunk,
‘Vain gravity sinks and stinks like a skunk’!
And elsewhere paucity of facts
A ready excuse is man when not acts!