This is an open letter to my niece, Sudha, who lives in India and is hesitant about whether to get a Covid vaccine or not. Advice from your doctor uncle: get the vaccine as quickly as you can! It just might save your life.
Memories come back to me. I remember vividly the time your grandmother and I were crossing Mount Road. I was accustomed in America to cross a street without looking too carefully. Not a good idea in India. The second poem has to do with that Mount Road incident as well. What really happened? Your grandmother and I found ourselves in the middle of the road with two busses hurtling toward us. My heart fluttered, (somewhat differently fromm the chronic atrial flutter I am experiencing now)---I thought that we were both going to be killed. I grabbed your grandma's hand and made a mad dash for the sidewalk. We made it! Just before reaching the sidewalk, we had to dodge an auto rickshaw, but that was easy compared to what we just went through.
Please view the above as a metaphor for your situation. You are in the middle of Mount Road, as it were, with two virus-packed buses threatening your life. Unlike us, you don't have to run; just walk to a nearby clinic and get the jab. The auto rickshaw, by the way, symbolizes the very minor side effects that the vaccines rarely cause.
Please get the vaccine! It is safe. You can't get Covid from it; it also won't exacerbate the medical issues you have. Don't get run over by a virus!
Both poems, which are decades old, have to do with the Mount Road near-miss. The first one also includes a vignette about your grandmother's visit to some old coot, who actually thought she was bowing down to him upon leaving his cottage! On another occasion, your grandmother told me she was visiting someone who offered her a beverage, as is the Indian custom. It apparently tasted terrible, but your grandmother didn't want to be rude. When no one was looking, she poured the yucky liquid into a potted plant--she thought it was a real plant, and expected it to nicely absorb the drink. It turned out to be a plastic plant! She was caught red-handed with an empty cup of ovaltine in her hand next to a suspicious puddle on the floor.
Jawaharlal Road in the first poem is, you guessed it, really Mount Road. (What is it called now?) I forgot--your grandmother did use her umbrella as a weapon as we ran for our lives. By the way, as in the second poem, remember when buffaloes and cows roamed the streets of Chennai? In a way, I miss them. As Cummings wrote, 'Progress is a comfortable disease.'
Both of these poems appeared in magazines long ago and in anthologies as well.
Get the vaccine ASAP! If you have any questions, I would be glad to answer them.
Affectionately signed,
Your Uncle
NIRMALA’S INDIA
She bends down to pick up the brolly
which I brought her from London.
He thinks she wants to touch his bare feet.
“No, no, Mollai, rise, please!” She doesn’t reveal
the poor budhu’s mistake. Delighted,
he thanks us and bids us good-bye.
“What an old windbag!” “Did he
really think I was bowing down, as if
Maha-walrus were Krishna?” We laugh.
“What did she write in that awful book?”
“In India a woman can be killed with
impunity
any time
in life.” “She must have interviewed
him--
The real danger here is crossing streets!”
I follow.
Mother’s umbrella, now her bayonet,
charges across Jawaharlal Road.
THE TOAD
Right in the middle of a Third World
road
not far from the heart of a city
just to the left of my two Western
eyes
a giant toad --fat, brown and dusty.
For a moment, a miracle --no traffic:
no men, women, children, cows,
buffaloes,
carts, dogs, cycles, cars, lorries,
to push
moo, drive, bark, ring, and honk us
aside.
"I've escaped, just like you,
from a swamp--
So tell me, dear fellow wise
pot-bellied creature,
is this world worth it?" A lorry advances;
we look at each other --then jump for
our lives.
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