By Rajababu

I saw the old lady waiting for her turn,
While I was waiting for mine;
The Doctor saw her too, she came shuffling on one leg,
The other one was bandaged, and shrouded in pain.
Or so I thought, or was I mistaken?


She came with a syringe and a vial of fluid;
She was pushing sixty, abetted by her daughter,
They were a grim picture of urban poverty and
Desolateness accentuated by the loss of their husbands.
Shunned by society and now cheated by health


I winced at the thought of the painful IV shot,
My empathy tried to encompass age-old pain,
I seem to have misread, her eyes were set in stone..
Raising the syringe against the light, the doctor looked up;
And then at her wrinkled face, there was no grimace,
No wince, no emotion from this haggard old woman.


Maybe, she had toned up to life's rigors,
Or maybe it was a well-administered IV,
Not was she happy on the completion of the task,
Was she hiding her pain, or did she have none?


On the endless smorgasbord of Human fortunes,
Was this marginal player inured in Fortitude?
Or did she choose not to exhibit it to
The empty vacuous world around her painful self?


-A poem by Rajababu.