An Indian Tragedy by Satish Pendharkar

An Indian Tragedy

Satish Pendharkar

Can you blame Laxmichandra and Babita For not having possessed Prescience in adequate measure to foresee The nightmare that was looming large?

Their solitary child Avinash was dying. However, they had pinned their hopes On the monuments of Super Speciality - The Taj Mahals of Medical Hospitality.

Shuttling from one hospital to another, Begging that their sinking son be saved; Racing through streets - their ambulance’s siren Muffling the pitiful wails of their lad.

Yet everywhere encountering the trauma Of doors being slammed on their faces. The cruel discovery: One is an outcast In a city one regards as one’s own.

The caring hands that readily caress, Cuddle, calm and coddle the affluent And the influential – those very hands Often crush the spirit of the multitudes.

Their boy on the verge of the precipice, They saw Hippocratic Oath-takers Turn hypocrites to shut them out, realizing - When one’s untitled, one’s not entitled.

Deflated, they resumed their leather-hunt Finally finding an oasis in the desert. Soon thereafter, calamity struck Snuffing out the flickering candle.

The ruthless world yet continued To extract from them a further price; For what greater sorrow can visit one Than one having to bury one’s only child

Feeling awfully lonely, utterly hopeless

And terribly guilty, they stared hard At the gaping ground below before tying Their hands together to take the final plunge.

“It’s nobody’s fault” they had written. Incorrect. For, we as a nation failed them. So, what plans have we – acts of atonement, To ensure their deaths have not gone in vain?