Longings of a heart

WOUNDS OF HOPE The wind was harsh as a surgeon’s knife cornering mankind to the embrace of warmth and wool.   Laxman was consoling the winter shivers by sleeping beside the fiery campfire in the tiny hamlet of tribal Orissa. Suddenly, he threw a convulsion and fell into the fire.  The rebellious brain, by dead habit, did not attend to the thermal injury his body was suffering, till the somnolent villagers could salvage this mentally retarded child. His right arm got totally burnt and the elbow joint was exposed. Maggots made their cottages in the putrefied flesh. The ignorant parents brought this child of utter neglect to the hospital 20 days after the mishap. The first look at the wound, as the attending doctor triggered many feelings in me. Hope was not one of them. I had to explain the parents that the child would need intense ulcer care- the inclement insects had to be flushed out, the dead tissue had to be excised, the wound needed to be cleaned, before a skin graft could

A YEAR- A STORY  Should I make this reflection public? I doubt how a personal and intimate musing as this could be of any social benefit! But then I feel that the story needs to be told, because it involves struggles that are too common for ordinary mortals and if we could sit and discuss them, let alone find solutions, then the purpose of this writing is achieved. That’s why I pen these words hoping to find friends who share my temptations and people who can guide me forward. The year that went by had many facets like squares of a dice. Some fell on right numbers. Some tumbled away into waywardness. This is my take on the year that glided past in my life. The year started on a good note. I went to the lakeside and took some resolutions. Those were the initial days of my work in the hospital and I could learn many new things. I was given the responsibility of the ward and the lives of the patients in it. I did the first C-section, performed the maiden lumbar puncture, gave the