Miscarriage

A curtain of rain separates
My verandah from the hospital.
On any other day a hundred
Silent patients would pass through
The OP clinic. Each of them
Allowing us doctors to listen
Feel, touch and question them.
The warmth of their fever would
Make us uncomfortably hot.

Today the air is chilled downpour wet.
Water roars in the stony river.
Five nurses, Gi and I sloshed
Through muddy puddles to witness
Our stream in full spate.
Only one desperate couple managed
To make it on the early bus.
Wanting an abortion.

Kutti Thambi Chinna Doctor

He died five hours ago.
A small boy of three.
Looked so still and limp.
His family wailed.

His house is a few fields away.
His aunt works in our hospital.
He was born here.
He died at home.

He had a fever.
He vomited for three days.
His mother took him to a
Local traditional practitioner.

Our ambulance was called.
He stopped breathing before it came.
Tha held the mother.
And both were disconsolate.

His name is not tomorrow.

Poem in a car

Imagine if this poem was fashionable.
And was found in a book of fashionable poems.
Read by fashionable people in fashionable cars.

Then the name of this fashion will be
Fair fashion. And it will be fashionable to be fair.

To be fair one would need to look at the paper
On which this fashionable poem was written.
And wonder whether the paper is fair as it is
fashionable.

Who cut the tree to create a fashionable poem's paper?
Whose tree was it anyway? Does she read
fashionable poems?

Who sat in the car in which the fashionable poem was read?
Should we wonder whether the car is fashionable as it is fair?

Who mined the earth to create a fashionable car's body?
Whose earth was it anyway? Was he ever in a fashionable car?

Blood toads

We deliver babies here
In a spew of blood and amniotic fluid
That splashes on our feet
Seeps into our cuts and crevices
And does daily battle with immunoglobulins
Yet the worry of contracting Hep B or HIV
Does not seem to worry the blood toads
Fat amphibians of the labour cot drain hole
Whose eyes shine at the most recent surge
Of human fluid.

Will today bring a rare gush of O Negative blood?
Will it send them scampering over the floor?
Student nurses in vain set after them
Scattering carefully stacked urine sample bottles
And a patient’s husband rushes to Salem
To buy injections that cost him two months earnings.

At night the new mother dreams
Expensive Anti D Ig courses her veins
Tiny lips suckle her breast
A multitude of pale green toads
Spawn nourished on her blood
Invade the ward hungry for more
A fresh red river flows from her uterus
Which is lax in terror.
She awakes screaming.

The junior night duty nurse runs
She awakens a thin tired doctor
The patient is shifted to the labour cot
Methergine soon flows into her veins
The now contracting uterus
Pushes out a kidney tray full of blood
Half a litre of gelatinous clots
More nourishment for the blood toads.

Stone River Hospital

Occasionally I write poetry. There, I finally said it. Most of it is terribly personal, vulnerable and badly written. Over the last two months however I have occasionally written something that I feel comfortable about. Both the poems below are based on my experiences here and meticulously portray life as it really is.

A short note on the label of this blog post. 'Stone River Hospital' is a literal translation of Kal Aath Aspatre as we are locally known. Below is a photo of the river which runs about 200 feet away from my room. If someone had to literally translate what I am known as in the area it will be' Stony River Little Doctor' :-)

M's Betrayal

When the skin on the bottom of your feet
Burns. Burns really red hot.
It becomes hard and black. Like
Old cracked leather.
It makes a 'tok tok tok'
Noise like a coconut shell. Dry.

Inside creamy pus waits patiently.
The doctor will soon quit tapping
the skin with his pen.
He will mumble instructions in Tamil.
Nurses will scurry. The woman will
Starve to avoid vomiting with the anaesthesia.

In the evening Dhanam Akka will
Crack open a beautiful glass ampoule.
With the deftness of experience she will
Pull ketamine into a plastic syringe.
M lies on the steel operating table
Softly moaning under her green blindfold.

Soon cold steel clasped in latex
clad fingers will pare through
dead skin. Patient pus will burst
forth and dribble into a plastic
kidney shaped tray. Raw red
flesh will make a shy debut.

Akka, will you promise not to tell
Anyone. Promise on your heart.
Promise on your head. Promise. Promise.
I didn't fall into a cooking fire
because I fainted being two months pregnant.

I took some tablets because I didn't
Want a second child right now.
Ten pills from the local doctor. They
They knocked me out and then
Then my husband came home drunk.

Promise you won't tell anyone. Promise.
On your heart. Promise on your head.
He was in a murderous rage. He.
He tied me up and then he.
He stuffed a cloth in my mouth.

---------------------------------------------------------

You might be tempted to ask why this has been the best year of my life. Here's why ....

A Rural Practitioner's Happiness

Tiny hands. Big eyes.
The cutest damn expression in the world.
That's my reward. That's happiness.

Then I walk out of the labour ward.
I can see hills all around. Green.
That's my reward. That's happiness.

My cottage sits on the edge of the forest.
Full of books, art films and insects.
That's my reward. That's happiness.

The local women who work at our hospital
Call me 'Anna'.
That's my reward. That's happiness.

An old therakoote vadiyar
Is grateful I was with him during his second MI.
That's my reward. That's happiness.

When death comes. Despair.
Loneliness and gastritis.
I think of my rewards. I try happiness.

Varavara speaks my mind on reservations in medical colleges

Merit Rule of Brahmin

a poem by Varavara Rao

Lucky
You are born rich
To say in your language
“Born with silver spoon in the mouth”

Your agitation sounds creative
Our agony looks violent

You are meritorious
You can break the glass of buses
In a shape

As symmetric as sun’s rays

You can deflate the tires
With artistic elan
While indulgent police look on
With their jaws rested on rifle butts

You can tie ‘Rakhis’
Even in
The dark chambers
Of a police station
You do not buy bus ticket
Not because
Your pocket is empty
That is practical protest

The beautiful roads
Are all yours
Whether you do a `Rasta Roko’
Or drive vehicles with `save merit’ stickers

We are bare-footed
Sweat-stinking road rollers
What if we built the roads?
The merit of plan is yours
The credit of contract is also yours

Those exhilarating sixty days, what fun!
When your cute little girls
And their daredevil mates
Were going on a delectable rampage,

Everybody was delighted
Parents, their parents
Brothers and sisters
Even the servants
And reporting Newspapers?
Oh, absolutely thrilled!

Boys and girls
Hand in hand
In protest
Of buried merit and dashed future
Going off to a picnic
O Yaar,
How heroic!

You are the marathoners
In merit competition
Poor tortoises
Can we run with you?

If
You serve “Chair” in Chikkadpalli
Sell “pallies” in cinema hall
Polish boots in Kothi Circle
Stop a Maruti or Priya on the Tankbund
To demand agitation fund

Well
Media persons are `merit’ creatures
Their camera hearts `click’
Their pens shriek,
“Youthful brilliance”!

We are drab faced duds
Sitting in the stink of dead animals
We make shoes
By applying color with our blood
And polishing them
With the sinking light of our eyes

However,
Isn’t the shine different
When polished
By someone in boots?

We clean up your filth
Carry the night soil on our heads
We wear out our bodies
Washing your rooms
To make them sparkle
Like your scented bodies

We sweep, we clean; our hands are brooms
Our sweat is water
Our blood is the phenyl
Our bones are washing powder
But all this
Is menial labor
What merit it has?
What skill?

Tucked-in shirts and miniskirts
Jeans and high heels
If you sweep
The cement road with a smile
It becomes an Akashvani scoop
And spellbinding Doordharshan spectacle

We are
Rickshaw pullers
Porters and cart wheelers
Petty shopkeepers
And low grade clerks

We are
Desolate mothers
Who can give no milk
To the child who bites with hunger

We stand in hospital queues
To sell blood to buy food

Except
For the smell of poverty and hunger
How can it acquire
The patriotic flavor
Of your blood donation?
Whatever you do
Sweep, polish
Carry luggage in railway station
Or in bus stand
Vend fruits on pushcart
Sell chai on footpath
Take out procession
With `Save merit’ placards
And convent pronunciations

We know
It is to show us that
Our labor of myriad professions
Is no match to your merit

White coats and black badges
Hanging over chiffon saris and Punjabi dresses
`Save merit’ stickers
On breasts carrying `steth’s (stethoscopes)
When you walk(ed) in front of daftar
Like a heaven in flutter
For EBCs among you
And those who crossed 12000 among us
The reservation G.O.
Is not only a dream shattered and heaven shaken
But also a rainbow broken

Yours
Is movement for justice
On the earthly heaven
That is why
`Devathas’ dared more for the amrit

The moment
You gave a call for `jail bharao’
In the press conference
We were shifted out
From barracks
To rotting dungeons
Great welcome was prepared
Red carpet was spread
(`Red’ only in idiom; the color scares even those who spread it.)

We waited with fond hope that
The pious dust of your feet
Would grace not only the country
But its jails, too

How foolish!
The meritorious cream
The future
Of country’s glorious dream
How can they come
To the hell of thieves,
Murderers and subversives?

We read and rejoice
That function halls
Where rich marriages are celebrated
Became your jails

Ours may be a lifelong struggle till death
But yours is a happy wedding party of the wealth
If you show displeasure
It is like a marriage tiff
If you burn furniture
It is pyrotechnical stuff
If you observe `bandh’
It is the landlord’s daughter’s marriage

Lucky
The corpse of your merit
Parades through the main streets
Has its funeral in `chourastas’
Amidst chanting of holy `mantras’

But Merit has no death
So
You creatively conduct symbolic procession
And enact the mourning `prahasan’
In us
To die or to be killed
There is no merit

We die
With hunger, or disease,
Doing hard labor, or committing crime,
In lock up or encounter
(Meritorious will not agree inequality is violence)

We will be thrown
By a roadside;
In a filthy pit;
On a dust heap;
In a dark forest

We will turn ash
Without a trace
We will `miss’
From a hill or a hole

Our births and deaths
Except for census statistics,
What use they have
For the national progress?

We take birth
And perish in death
In and due to
Miserable poverty
You assume the `Avatar’
When Dharma is in danger
And renounce the role
After completing the job
You are the `sutradhar’

You are lucky
You are meritorious.

Varavara Rao (b. 1940) is a member of Viplava Rachayitala Sangham (VIRASAM: Revolutionary Writers’ Association). He lives in Hyderabad.

Brecht sums up my reflections on the near completion of my degree

To The Students Of The Workers’ And Peasants’ Faculty

1
So there you sit. And how much blood was shed
That you might sit there. Do such stories bore you?
Well, don’t forget that others sat before you
Who later sat on people. Keep your head!

2
Your science will be valueless, you’ll find
And learning will be sterile, if inviting
Unless you pledge your intellect to fighting
Against all enemies of all mankind.

3
Never forget that men like you got hurt
That you might sit here, not the other lot.
And now don’t shut your eyes, and don’t desert
But learn to learn, and try and learn for what.


A Worker’s Speech To A Doctor

We know what makes us ill.
When we are ill we are told
That it’s you who will heal us.

For ten years, we are told
You learned healing in fine schools
Built at the people’s expense
And to get your knowledge
Spent a fortune.
So you must be able to heal.

Are you able to heal?

When we come to you
Our rags are torn off us
And you listen all over our naked body.
As to the cause of our illness
One glance at our rags would
Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out
Our bodies and our clothes.

The pain in our shoulder comes
You say, from the damp; and this is also the reason
For the stain on the wall of our flat.
So tell us:
Where does the damp come from?

Too much work and too little food
Makes us feeble and thin.
Your prescription says:
Put on more weight.
You might as well tell a bullrush
Not to get wet.

How much time can you give us?
We see: one carpet in your flat costs
The fees you earn from
Five thousand consultations.

You’ll no doubt say
You are innocent. The damp patch
On the wall of our flat
Tells the same story.

- Bertolt Brecht

Look at the Dalit basti!

Look at the dalit basti
What plight of humans!
From the belly rises fire,
But the chulha can not be lit.
- Bahinabai Chaudhari (1888-1951)

I am not in chains, not in chains:
I a neither diseased nor I am a healer.
Am not a Moman nor a Khafir am I,
Neither a Mulla nor a Saiyed,
Why ask Bulle Shah his caste?
Neither I created caste, nor am I born in one.
- Bulleh Shah (1680-1748)

Brahmin, Vaishya, Shudra or Kshatriya,
Dom, Chandal or Mlechchha: All have the same soul.
They can all attain purity, singing hymns to God:
It will liberate both – self and generations.
- Ravi Das (1398-1448)

Sugar cane is rough; the juice in it is sweet,
The bow is not straight but the arrow is,
River zigzags, but not the water in it.
Chokha isn’t beautiful but the God in him is.
Why get misled by outward appearances?
- Chokha Mela (14th century)

Actions, says Dadu, rank higher that one’s caste,
Think not, therefore, of anything else;
Social ranking is tainted,
Illumined are only noble thoughts.
- Dadu Dayal (1544 – 1603)

Immortal is the land I come from;
There are no Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Shudras or Vaishyas
No Mughals or Pathans, nor Saiyeds or Shaikhs;
The message humble Kabir brings, in essence, is:
Let’s go to that land.
- Kabir (1398-1518)

This set of poems is from a calender designed by Loknaad.

Communicable disease among rabbits

Untitled

Rabbits they say
Are very scarce to-day
My diagnosis?
Myxamatowsis.

- Spike Milligan
-------------------------------

Myxomatosis

Caught in the center of a soundless field
While hot inexplicable hours go by
What trap is this? Where were its teeth concealed?
You seem to ask.
I make a sharp reply,
then clean my stick. I'm glad I can't explain
Just in what jaws you were to supporate:
You may have thought things would come right again
If you could only keep quite still and wait.

- Philip Larkin (1955)
-------------------------------

Myxomatosis

The mongrel cat came home

Holding half a head

Proceeded to show it off

To all his new-found friends

He said, "I've been to where I like.

"I've slept with who I like.

"She ate me up for breakfast.

"She screwed me in a vice.

"But now,I don't know why I feel so tongue tied."

I sat in the cupboard

And wrote it down in neat

They were cheering and waving

cheering and waving

twitching and salivating

like with myxomatosis.

But it got edited fucked up

Strangled beaten up

Used as a photo in Time magazine

Buried in a burning black hole in Devon

And now, I don't know why I feel so tongue tied.

Don't know why I feel so skinned a- live.

My thoughts are misguided and a little naïve

I twitch and I salivate

like with myxomatosis.

You should put me in a home or you should

Put me down

I got myxomatosis.

I got myxomatosis.

Yeah and no one likes a smart arse

But we all like stars(Oh please)

That wasn't my intention(blah blah)

I did it for a reason (reason)

It must've got mixed up

Strangled

Beaten up

I got myxomatosis.

I got myxomatosis.

And now, I don't know why I feel so tongue tied.

- Radiohead. Hail the Thief (2003)

-------------------------------

Myxomatosis

A baby rabbit
With eyes full of pus
This is the work
Of scientific us

- Spike Milligan

-------------------------------

Myxomatosis (from the Greek μύξα (mucus), and ματώνω (to bleed)) is a disease which infects rabbits. It is caused by the myxoma virus. First observed in Uruguay in the early 1900s, it was deliberately introduced into Australia in an attempt to control rabbit infestation there.

A mere two Israeli generations ago

"In Germany first they came for the communists
and I did not speak out-
because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out-
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out-
because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me-
and there was no one left
to speak out for me."

-Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892-1984)
A leader of the church's oposition to Hitler.

Travelling in the Narmada Valley ..

What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness and life
were dangerously burning out in them?

Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will have nothing to say.

A vulture of silence
will eat your guts.
Your own misery
will gnaw at your souls.
And you will be mute
in your shame.

-Otto Rene Castello.
Guatemalan poet who was killed by the Guatemalan army on March 19, 1967.

A Worker's Speech to a Doctor

When we come to you
Our rags are torn off us
And you listen all over our naked body.
As to the cause of our illness
One glance at our rags would
Tell you more. It is the same cause that wears out
Our bodies and our clothes.

The pain in our shoulder comes
You say from the damp: and this is also the reason
For the stain on the wall of our flat.
So tell us:
Where does the damp come from?

-Bertolt Brecht