little beginnings

Remember when we started small
When all we had wasn’t tall
We weren’t stocked
With goods like the shopping mall

But we started small
If you would recall

But Now I look back and
There’s a huge space down this hall
From that little place
where we started small.

Dear Friend...

You have stayed with me through my transitions
For each time I died and rose back again
It felt like a new world
One that I did not recognize its inhabitants
But your voice sounded just the same.

And through all of my life stages
There were traces of you
Supporting in all of my acquisitions
With our timely rites of passage
Brother and brother, hand in hand.

You urged me on when I was down
When I had my head buried in thigh
Hiding my many faces of shame and doubt
With a love that had no condition
You took me up and affirmed me with a crown.

You are the bridge
Between my old and new worlds
The tall tree with sturdy branches
I am thankful dear friend
For the naïve child of yesterday,
Has become a sage today.

I rise

When I stand in the middle
I stand alone
there's a crowd to the side
the winds have blown

Their sight is subtle
It catches the eyes
My knees are feeble
But still I rise.

Life as a flux!

However hard as I often wish, I cannot find the solution to all of humanity’s problems - though the thought of their struggles is a heavy weight that constantly pulls me along the way of gravity. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to play God for a day. Then, there will be no need for Medical or Nursing schools, for there will be no need for doctors, nurses, or the hospital, as there would be no ill or diseased patients. There will be no jails, nor sadness, nor pain, nor sorrows; no death, no hunger, no crime; no addiction, no suffering, no war; no earthquakes, no heartbreaks. This must be heaven in my imagination. Come live with me.

But these days, I find that situations have a way of flipping between extremes in such short intervals, even without trying hard. One minute I’m worried over a looming problem, and then the next minute the trouble vanishes, and I wonder where it all went. A similar experience I have observed with bipolar patients I encountered at the Psychiatric unit. These show a quick vacillation in mood that leaves me perplexed, and thinking to myself that these guys must be really lucky to have no need to waste time on worry. Just live.

I’m almost at the end of my clinical rotations. This the 8th week. And who would have thought they would have come by so quick. Five weeks of pediatrics, and in the third week of psychiatry, with two more to go. Some days have been dreadful, while others have been nice.

There have been days of tireless work interspersed with precious moments with patients and colleagues on and off the wards. I have made few friends with the sick kids and the mentally ill adults, and have come to realize that the label “mad” is most times misused and misrepresented. Or maybe it is just me, so easy at making friends, even with the “mad” and “crazy” men and women. Yet, I am glad to know that my appeal goes across the border of intelligence and sanity. For it is not every day that I get a “can I go out on a date with you when I get out of here”, or “can I kiss you?” from a lady. Only this time, I had to emphatically reply with a “no, that would be inappropriate.”

But behind all the charades, it feels good to know that even with the worry in my heart that aches for them, when I smile, they smile back. And in this, we share an understanding of the simple ways in which we smoothly ride the flux of life.

The Sun

She wears the sun
Yet her skin is without a burn
Her radiant attire torches like fire
The heat from her air blows a burning desire

She shines like the sun
Rays of hope pierces through your soul
Murders your pains like a firing gun
Makes the dark speed up with a run

She is the sun
The one that dawns the fears of dusk
That lights the world with smiles for no buck
If you lose your way and need a guide
Here she is, behold the sun.