We would have not known goosebumps by a child’s touch.
We would have beaten up a child and he wouldn’t have cried much.
We would have kissed without our hearts managing a flutter.
We would have sought new forms of tortures that served us better.
We would have held hands and not felt sensations.
We would have sprayed bullets and death would have danced sans afflictions.
We would have lost stirring of love and the warmth of passion.
We would have thrown acid on a sleeping woman and turned her painlessly ashen.
We would have not known the tenderness of an embrace
We would have not known a stinging slap on our face.
We would have not felt our feet going numb in snow
We would have not known the blinding Sun’s burning grow.
We would have not smiled at the wetness of the rain.
We would have been stung by bees without the pain.
We would have not known a tear sliding silently down with a dream.
We would have burnt a bride and she would have died without a scream.
We would have not known when winds had gathered around.
We would have bled to death without knowing the searing pain of a wound.
We would have feared death and not the pain that comes before it.
We would have welcomed life sans the fear of pain that bore it.
We would have been equals as endurance would have no gender.
We would have lived in a different world where touch had no splendor.
[image from here]
And touch screens wouldn’t have been the turning point of technology.
Wonderful thoughts Amit 🙂
Haha. Yeah, that would have been a pressing issue.
Thanks My Era. 🙂
@ my era : lol true
I too thought the same :p
that’s a nice finding My Era 🙂
Never got the thought, Amit. How world would have been without a sense of touch? It gave me goosebumps while reading…we living beings are such gifted creatures to feel all this. I know, we wouldn’t have felt many many things..
We would have been very different. Our civilization has its foundations in pain and torture. We would have still killed each other but I wonder how would have that affected us without the fear of pain and torture?
Love, hate and pain would have died a meaningless death.
Beautiful thoughts, Amit.
Pain. I wonder how we would have turned up in its absence? We would have been an entirely different race.
Thanks Purba.
Oh
Reading a poem first time . As I love poems loved this . Really the happiness and also pain would have been effectively subsided only if we had no sense of pain !!:(
I mean only if we had no sense of touch . It was a typo
“we would have not felt the softness of a flower.
We would have sweat profusely with a mouth shut when there is no power 😉
Would it mean we r powerful to not feel anything and will it be godly .
Or will it just be a bland life where we wait for death and spend each minute madly!!”
Gustaakhi maaf;)
Felt like adding these liness as not feeling pain and still suffering also seems like a weird pain to me !
Afshan,
I was actually scribbling these lines when I realized that some of them rhymed. I am really not good at writing poems. 🙂 The thought of a missing sense was fascinating, especially the sense of touch. We know that people can live without the other four senses but you cannot take away the sense of touch from a human – remove it and you change our evolution.
Wah! I agree and agree more..you are a rockstar Amit 🙂
Thanks R’s Mom. 🙂
I agree!!
beautifully said! 🙂
Thanks Pixie. 🙂
Love and pain and probably hatred too wouldn’t have existed… Nicely put Amit.
Also people would have died without knowing the reason or before getting any help.
Thanks Jas.
That was brilliant! Loved the couplets. 🙂
But then, there would be no touch screens as well – That is where the mind of an IT laborer goes to 😉
Thanks Akanksha. 🙂
I think touch screens would have existed. We would have just lost the sense to touch, not the finger. 😛
Reminds me of one article I read long back. There was a baby born in the US (there maybe more than one but this was the one that got reported) who did not have the sensation of pain. So people would say, that’s not a bad thing really is it? But the reality is totally different.
Pain is what you keeps you from poking yourself in the eye. Pain is what keeps a teething baby from chewing on her tongue. Pain is what makes you favour a swollen or injured ankle so that it heals faster. Unfortunately the said baby did not do any of these. She lost one eye and nearly chewed half of her tongue off before her parents realised the horror behind and managed to save her remaining eye and tongue. They were extra careful about it after that.
So much we take for granted, without realising that everything has a reason… 🙂
It would have been a nightmare for the parents.
The fact remains that we were given the power to feel pain for our own benefit, to stay alive. We, on the other hand, have used it to subjugate and torture.
Food for thought here, how would we live without pain!
And the warmth of hugs…scary 😐
Thanks Visha.
Seeing the state of how we treat each other, we would have been better off without it. I am sure we would have devised ways to stay alive.
If sense of touch was not there then ahem ahem #censored
I am sure we would have found ways. 😛
Sheesh!!
What Sheesh?!? That is a perfectly legitimate thought!
I had seen an episode of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ , in which they showed the case of a small girl who could not sense pain. She played rough, often fought, stapled her wounds, asked others to hit her in the stomach. She believed she had super powers and could not be hurt. But when the girl was scanned, there was internal bleeding in her stomach. The doctors soon diagnosed she had Congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP), so she never felt the pain. She never complained about her pains and her parents never knew if she was seriously hurt or not, unless they saw deep wounds or blood. They end the episode with these words ” Look at this. Everybody wants a life without pain. And what does it get you? She needs to be on a poster somewhere to remind people, pain is there for a reason”. That line some how got wired into my brains.
Since then whenever I am in pain I remember “pain is there for a reason”.
That would have been such a painful experience for everyone involved. To see your loved one in such a condition is nothing less than a punishment.
Yes, pain is there for a reason, but we have manipulated it to be much more malovalent than God intended it to be.
This is so thought provoking.. Rem reading somewhere, “Skin desires to be touched”. 🙂
Thanks Jo.
Yes, that was the idea. 🙂
Touch is only one of the mediums to convey pleasures and pains, sensations tender and intense, and their absence. Your poem seems to have progressed in the same vein from signals to trauma, from joys and treasures of touch to pain and suffering. A lovely composition.
Suffering. Yes, that is something that was never supposed to be there. If losing the sense of touch means erasing suffering from the history of mankind, it is a bargain worth making. Even if it takes away all the pleasures of touch.
Thanks Uma.
But touch has such splendour ! Imagine not begin able to feel a petal, or cool water gushing through your fingers !
I love how you have used opposites in your poem !
It is so much like nature. Calm and soothing and then furious and painful. There is so much we can derive from the mishmash of our nervous system that it is mind-boggling.
Thanks for liking the poem Ruchira.
of what use is this sense of touch when we dont understand the pain we cause others with our cruelty. rather than just give us the sense of touch, god should have given us a conscience.
Exactly what went though my mind while writing this poem.
Honestly, never thought about it. Very sensitive meaningful weave.
Thanks Alka.
Well penned! It is the simplest things in life that are the most meaningful and that we take so much for granted.
Thanks Rachna.
Yes, imagine a disease which takes away your sense of touch.
Very meaningful.. Loved the poem and what I loved more was after every one or two lines of sense of pain, you wrote about one of pleasure, maintaining the balance of the benefits and evils of this sense…
We take so many things for granted, and this is one among them for sure…
Thanks Saanjh. Yes, nothing is black and white. There are always greys.
Wow, very interesting, & rhyming too! Loved it! 🙂
Thanks Gayatri. 🙂
the punjabis would have never said while drinking “yaar teri gallaaan (talks) ne mere dil nu touch kar dita oye!!!, le ik hor pi isi gum vich!”
And also – ‘Touch karke dikha!’ while they are fighting. 🙂
beautifully written! some of the lines are absolutely brilliant!
Thanks Debs!
I have often thought about it… maybe we should have had touch, but should have been able to switch off and on, when to feel pain, or when to feel anything, like we can stop seeing, moving, talking and hearing up to a limit…
Now that is a thought. The problem is that sometimes pain is necessary to know that we are healing but all we want is it to go away.
Brilliant post, Amit!
Thanks TGND.