Let Us Rouse Our Vegetating Psyche

(The sad news of Aruna Shabaugh’s death headlined newspapers across India this morning. She was a nurse at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai. She went into a vegetating coma after a ward-boy sexually assaulted her in 1973 and remained in that state at the same hospital for the last forty-two years under the care of her colleagues/staff. The hospital was just across the street from Haffkine Institute where I was working at the time of the incident. Although I am happy her ordeal has ended, the news of her passing away broke me down. A tsunami of empathy engulfs me and I wish the whole nation is washed by it.) __________ Aruna Shanbaugh has left Forty-two years of vegetating has ended On a King Edward Memorial Hospital bed When uncaring time morphed a dreamy damsel Into a wrinkled mass of grey sixty-eight without her knowledge They said she had been conscious But perhaps not aware Of what was going on around her Well, all that is a matter of conjecture Now for fruitless debaters. Who can understand a caged bird’s frantic flaps Behind the jail-bars of blocked senses? I had worked just across the street From where she was trespassed Our ways might have crossed on the roads Without our knowledge, we were strangers As she then hadn’t the tragic identity Which calamity imposed on her with horrendous cruelty As she lay looking blankly at the ceiling In the care of her untiring colleagues The law spent a lot of heartless time Deciding the nature of the crime Society debated if euthanasia was the need of the time Forty-two dead years of national vegetating During which millions of mothers and sisters Across our land were brutally disrobed and shamed An orgy that continues even now unabated Despite our loud and empty claims Aruna, how sad your tragedy hasn’t taught the men The lessons they should have learnt Long, long ago, that a woman too is a friend Not a piece of meat, and should be treated like an equal confidant! Why have we failed in drilling this theme Into the head of every male child of our land Right from birth, so it pauses Later in life to salute in respect Whenever a woman crosses its route? The granite stones of King Edward Are tearful this morn of humid May A bird that had housed in it For a long while has just flapped away Men of the nation, ask yourselves If her plight has welled your eyes And torn your hearts, if yes Get to your feet, rouse this nation’s psyche From the vegetating coma it is in May dear Aruna rest in peace May her story never repeat