I wrote this poem in 2010 at the age of 28. I wrote it because because even though I grew up in Australia, my parents would always take us to our ancestral homeland of India every two-to-four years and there I would learn about the world outside of the comforts that Australia offered. In India, my brother and I would spend time with our grandparents, meet our cousins, and experience the “real” India. Well, we would experience the real India sometimes – because 90% of the time we were sheltered in air conditioning and the middle class lifestyle of our extended family. The environment outside was starkly different from that shown in Bollywood movies, or one that was immortalized in the time-trapped dreams of my immigrant parents who moved to far away lands. Reality was actually quite brutal, and I realized that from a very young age.
I have a terrible memory, but India was seemed like a dystopian martian land to my 8 year old self. There was ridiculous opulence – for instance our Aussie currency seemed to be worth 30x more and we could pretty much buy whatever our heart desired. On the other hand, there was beggars on every single street that we traveled through. Poor people were omnipresent. The nicer that the places, clothes and food got – the more downtrodden people I noticed just living their lives right outside. Not just people with ragged clothing, and with shrinking bodies due to hunger, but human beings experiencing tremendous suffering due to having missed out on the medical advances of the last century. I’m in my 30s now, and have worked across the US and in Ghana, Haiti and Nepal and can honestly say that I’ve never encountered more people missing noses, fingers and feet than I have during my travels to India and witnessing the lepers on the streets of Delhi or Mumbai.
I guess ultimately I wrote this poem so that I never forget the things I have seen during my tremendously privileged career as a physician, or the people I have met during my travels. Their faces have haunted me, their stories have inspired me, and their experiences and their ability to overcome adversity have provided fuel when I was exhausted.
Here is my poem –
Undone
The tears of the poor never fall freely-
Burn like acid into their cheek.
A hungry stomach is never comforted by-
Knowledge that nothing changes.
One does not get used to despair.
They pray and look towards heaven-
Only to be met with droughts.
Misery though, showers down upon them.
Sadness hails down in buckets and-
Fear strikes like lightning at hearts.
There are no foreign saviors –
Some loot under guise.
There are no answers from outside-
Many puzzling tragedies at home.
Something does arise from amidst the chaos.
God. Hope. Love. Naivety?
Tape will not mend these souls.
Nor will philosophy, nor theology, nor promises.
Will we stand by them,
or will we turn our backs
and look towards a more perfect landscape
