The Men I Met (Experiences Of Life Shared With, Lessons Of Life Learnt) Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

A science student I saw him passing somehow
But the simple student friend of his
I saw him turning into an arts deptt.professor.

He was a third-classer
Now say he is a first classer.

A student who did is Matric somehow,
His H.S. with without English
Now a professor of psychology,
Trying to speak like a foreigner.

Bogus students of philosophy
Often like to take away big posts
Of the academia.

Those who read or teach English in colleges
Are not Englishmen,
Be sure of it
As they can never be Angrez.

What is in me?
What it is in me is in you too.
Do not call you yourself great.

When the Divisional Commissioner took the additional charge
Of the V.C. of the new university,
It was a tamasha indeed to see the local college teachers
The way started to cringe and stooping to conquer
Or accessing andapproaching the P.A. and the personal secretary
As for to be OSDs. in addition to their college works whatsoever
But have to be acting varsity officers.

When some boys and girls failed to make way to
Their P.G. in English or Geoography
I saw them running to Kanpur, Bilaspur and Raipur
To enter through the backdoor.

A bio-science deptt. simple college teacher of a blunt rural area
I saw him turning into a V.C.
Who was not even a keen researcher
But after starting to edit a journal,
Appeasing the Comissioner V.C. 's P.A.
To be a new varsity officer with additional charge
An then started his journey
In climbing the ladder of success
Stating to act as Dev. Officer, Actg. Registrar to...

I read men and their manners,
Take a note of,
Read their arrogance
To enter into my diary
But hit the fools alike in a blunt and rough way
As have nothing to forgive the fools and the half-reads,
Posts come and go,
Do not matter for me,
To be a man helping in adversity, standing by one's bad days
Facing the wrath of the norwesters
Is my name.

A driver's son
He opened a private school
After his somehow B.A. pass course
And turned into the Headmaster
Of the CBBSC affiliated school
And the students calling him yes sr, yes sir,
Later the Head Sir kept clearing his M.A. privately
With a great labour,
Appearing and re-appearing.

And his elder brother
After his B.Sc. Pass
Somehow did his M.A. in English
To get out of the house
As for family friction
Kept working in different private residential schools
Of this state and that state
To be a highly-paid headmaster of a reputed istitution in the end.

Older film heroes,
Tell you, what were they in the beginning?
Everybody looks but fine in photography.

A Matric third division division,
An H.S. third division without English,
But a B.A. Sanskrit Hons.
And M.A. in Sanskrit
Miraculously B.Ed. and M.Ed.
Now springs up with his Ph.D,
God knows, from which university,
He can only say it
Is now a govt- school headmaster
Can hold a rank
But is the same loafer and blunt, illiterate boy
Speaking a rough and tough tongue
Of the country.

A last-bencher he was a law-practitioner
Asked me to say him,
Saheb,
A village boy
Whose father too was not educated
And the family had not been cultured,
The boy from the same family.

I see man from close quarters,
From my close ranges
To make an appraisal of his
As post and power do not matter to me.

How can it be you a criminal
And I your justice?
Let me think, re-think,
The working of justice,
Making of judgement,
Reading of cases,
Who is what,
Which is why,
Why is it so?

Some loafers too now say it
They are management gurus,
Who is whose guru,
I do not?

Library peons
I saw them
Turning into
I.As., B.As., M.As.
All but with third
To be librarians
And doctorates too
To tell others,
I am a ddctorate,
Call me not Mr., but Dr.,
Not less than anyone,
Call me Sir,
Billi baagh ki mausi,
In connivance with student union leaders
And students and teachers,
Enjoying a great popularity among.

Lab men
After their M.Sc./ M.A.
I saw them turning
Into demonstrators
Of Science and Geography and Psychology
To be professors
To supervisros.

A psychology deptt. teacher
Who used to think a don
Was but a mind-reader
And I too not less than,
I too used to read him
After Freud, Jung, Adler and Coleman.

A Sahityacharya in Sanskrit
From a specified institution
Not with a good reputation
I saw him calling
A great professor of Sanskrit.

A Sahityaratna from a Hindi Vidyapeeth
Whose affililiation is often questioned
He in that old age
Asked M.A. in English
From taking the charge
Of the High School
As was blunt and critical
But was showy
With his khaddar dressing,
Dhoti and kurta.

Some of the Ph.D. guides
When I see them
Smile I within
And think

As they had never wanted to be
But have become
As fate is in their favour
And candidates in their lot.

Some who had wanted to be school teachers
Have now turned into varsity professors,
See their luck

As they joined the P.G.
With just M.A.

The board awards the villain
For his role
But none the else
But he
Who has turned
My son
Into a villain.

O missed call giver,
Tell you who you are,
If you do not havevmoney in your pocket,
Take money from meand telepone me
But do not do this,
Telephoning and cutting!

O missed call giver,
Who you are,
A thief, a dacoit, a crminal,
A lover or one for financial fraud,
An account-lifter?

A Maths deptt teacher
He was not by nature a researcher
Who forbade me to be solely into researches
Which but admonished I instantly
By taking to moodily,
Who hears you, cares for your words
And now he a big faculty member of science and technology
Of the northeast.

Models are but real heroines
Who do not get a chance,
Those who accesss are but.

A B.Sc. teacher from blunt Barhaia of landowners
I saw him in khadi kurta and dhoti
And so strict and stick-wielding for fearing students
When he was the in-charge of the town high school
Maintained he discipline tightly
Coming early, returning late,
Red-lining the attendance of late-comers
But when he got transferred to a distant village school
Say to some 40 to 50 kilometres away school
The same fellow used to leave the campus early
As for to reach the roadside and to catch the bus
For the return jouney each and every day.

A peon's son I saw him learning
At the feet of the private college
Non-salaried Hist Deptt. Ph.D. teacher,
For which paid he not
But he forgot him after
Becoming a teacher in Assam
Right from the Gangetic plains to the plateau
For better opportunities
Came it his father
After cringing a deputy magistrate
And that too during the overage
And his son a double manipulator
To the mountains.

The dull-brained bogus student
With his somehow B.A.
Whose better friend joined the college
As on the staff,
But he lurked in the public-opened
Private school
To be taken over by the govt.
And one day when many rretired from,
He turned into the teacher-in-charge
But could not clear his M.A.
From some open univ.
Even thirty five in Bengali in total
Even after being given 10 out of 10 in
Home assgnment,
It's strange the the head teacher
Could not get even twenty-five out of eighty written mark.

It pains me to see
When loafers and third-classrers get
Placed in life,
The dalals and chors.

Old heroes
Old loafers,
New heroes
New loafers,
A loafer will remain a loafer,
What can you do,
What can I too?

The minister on a bullock-cart
In a cowboy hat,
What minister, sir,
Asked they,
Said I,
Would be Dehati Minister,
What,
Asked they again,
Said,
Said I,
Wlould be from the first learners' generation
In his family
So is showing himself
To the folks,
Lo! I have become a misnister,
I have become a minister
And the Indian people after him
For a tamasha!

Do not sell the nation to politicians,
Some people too have built it,
Let there be a scope for them.

Think of the people's govt.,
Not of the politicians.

An illiterate half-read labour union leader
I could not satisfaction
In talking to him
So full of hypocrisy and arrogance
As was not from an aristocrat family
I wanted to teach him a lesson
In manners and courtesy
As for how to talk, how to behave.

Before the mirror
Everyone a hero, a heroine
And a singer humming
The song of love or life.

Say, are you not?

I hate the little-read people the most
Those who are little-read,
Half-read, half-educated.

Hare Rama, Hare Krishna,
Rama Rama, Krishna Krishna,
Will this go with and nothing else,
Krishna Krishna, Rama Rama,
Hare, Hare?

I asked the wild blooms
To tell their names,
But they kept it silent
With the note to be understood,
Beauty does not know any propaganda.

Mai yahan kuccha bhi lekei aaya nahi,
Kuccha lekei bhi nahi jaayungaa.
{I did not come it here with anything else,
Will not with anything else too.}

The other man's son is a criminal,
But never your son.
Who is but a criminal
We do not.
Go to the roots
Rather than the stem and the bark.

Justice,
Who is for justice,
Say you?
What is justice?
How do they get it?
Who the dispenser of justice?

Kaisei-kaisei loga,
Kaisi-kaisi kahaniya,
Nothing succeeds like success,
Lessons learnt in life,
Experience as it has taught.

Mera jo yahan kya,
Tera bhi kya?
{What is that mine,
What is that yours? }

Jeevan-patha pei akela hi chalana hai,
Na koi thaa aur naa koi hoga.
{Have to move it alone on the path of life,
None had been with, none will be with.}

Sochiye kuccha karnei she pahale.
Sochiyei, kuccha to sochiyei
Kuccha karne se pahale.

Cchotei loga cchoti-cchoti baatei,
Bade-bade loga badi-badi baatei,
Esamei-usamei cchoda kar
Apna hridaya ko to bada kijiyei.

I meet so many people every day
But rarely a man of good heart.

Small-small men,
Small-small minds and their talks,
As the men
So the talks.

But how to be big,
A man of some big heart,
Say you?
How to broaden the heart,
Say you?