By Dr Balesh Jindal
PROMPT—No one noticed ...
Each beautiful corner she
Decorated with her
Dreams.
Each crevice, she lighted with
Her girlhood laughter,
leaving none for herself.
Into each meal she
Sprinkled bits of her happy
Stillness. And lay sleepless
At night, planning chores
For the day ahead.
With duster in hand,
She dusted away
Cobwebs that gather on the eaves
And on her family.
She shoved them
Under her pillow to wipe them
With her tears.
With her determined steps,
She smoothened your paths,
Stone by stone,
Tirelessly.
Till her bones screamed
‘Enough’.
She traded her youth in pursuit of
Endless miracles for her home.
A price she
Willingly agreed to.
Yet no one noticed.
Dr Balesh Jindal is a graduate of the prestigious Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi, India and has had a professional medical practice for the last 38 years. Leaving a high profile career abroad, she was cast in the role of a low brow, village doctor. Her journey is a poignant tale of a reluctant, young doctor who found herself hurled from an urban lifestyle to managing a rural clinic. Dr. Jindal set out to heal, but found that she got healed instead. From her initial resentment, the rural clinic became a compelling and sustaining need for her. Treating the fifth generation of the families who adopted her as their ‘family doctor’ years ago, gives her an invaluable insight into family dynamics and relationships. Dr Jindal currently lives in Delhi with her husband, who is a liver transplant surgeon. Her son and daughter are settled in the USA. Her book, A Hundred Dreams, a coffee table book of a hundred poems & benches was published in 2021. Her non fiction memoir, The Reluctant Doctor, was published in 2022.
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