A solemn mask on a liquored-up face
looks incongruous. Why not rip it off?
That's better ! Sit down, man! Smile once again!
You don't have to stand there
and cough discreetly and shuffle about.
You haven't come here to condole ! All is well
in my house-thank Allah for it who keeps
the obituary-scribe from the door

Yes, yes, I understand the death of a patient
is also a death in our family;
A part of me dies with him.
But this boy from Sarai Khwaja complained
of an ear-ache. I'd not seen him before.
Some ear-drops I gave him and forgot about it
Till that ekka stood at my door in the evening.
`He's thrashing around like fish... a stomach-ache...
            he just can't bear it...'
' An intestinal knot maybe,' I said , and when
I reached the village he was already dead,
his mother looking at me as if I had knifed him.

For this week past I face an empty room, swatting flies.
All my patients come from Sarai Khwaja,
Sarai Mir, Allahdadpur, Kusum Khor,
Five miles on ox-cart and mule-back they come
but now they shun me as if instead
of powders I dole out cholera and pox!

If a man comes to his lawyer for advice
and is murdered on his way back
will his clients abandon him? Never!