Nyaya Health

Posted by Duncan Maru

As I’m re-reading the WHO’s “Surgical Care in the District Hospital” [1] in Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, a small girl not much younger than Anand and Umed (my twin boys) toddles over to explore the intricate details of my backpack’s harnesses and straps.  A little while later I hear my wife Sheela’s voice calling to me, though she is of course 7,000 miles away.  I struggle to remain focussed on the text, thinking of the family I have left behind.

My destination, Achham, itself is a place of migration.  Husbands and fathers are away from home for years, not weeks, at a time. I myself am blessed to live with my wife, our twins, and my wife’s incredible parents and cannot fathom such separation.  In this particular blog post I hesitate to comment on the complexities of migration and separation.  But I do want to share a poem, dedicated to those parents who have to spend time away from their children and who so often return to houses whose windows are darked [3] and whose rooms are empty.  I wrote this poem while working over the holidays and the family was spending time with relatives in Louisiana.  I provide a spoken version as well.

*windows, darked*

making my way home at night
the road, the same.
the path, changed.
bound for the moon someday
no, bound for the sun are they.

yes, in their eyes i see
the depths of the brain, a tree
of a quadrillion connections
of infinite perfections.
i count the zeros in my head:
1,000,000,000,000,000
synapses
make that x 2
[or is it 10^(15×2)??],
and in their mouths, the universe.

Yasoda’s vista[2] is not a metaphor
its the lived experience of us parents.
and even as i bike,
away from them
(not home yet),
in the dark
i can see the universe,
their universe.

but i reach the driveway
i realize now the path
is different.
Windows, darked.
not a spark.
not a flicker.
not two short torsos
who,
running,
wrestling with the world,
learn how to grasp,
harness the quadrillionth synapse
(times two)
to create new planets
and stars and trees and,
yes,
their share of microbes.
yes my sons
i can see you
running playing fighting,
of cars and puzzles and books
and discovery.

but not here, not now;
you’re not home.
nobody is.
windows, darked.
so i put away my gear.
and remember yesterday
when you were home
when the windows were lighted
when i could look into your mouths
and the universe would unfold.

1.  For those skeptics familiar with the heavy textbook, I was reading
it on my kindle.
2.  According to Hindu texts, Yasoda, Lord Krishna’s adopted mother,
would look into his mouth after he did various mischievous things, and
see the universe.
3. I borrow the term “darked” from the following passage from Dr. Seuss’s classic “Oh the places you’ll go”: You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win?

————–
Duncan Maru, MD, PhD is co-founder and President of Nyaya Health. He is currently a resident in the Internal Medicine – Pediatrics program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Boston.

Tags: Achham, Duncan Maru, Family, migration, Nepal, NGO, Nyaya Health, rural health, seperation, social networks