International Award-winning Author Ali Ashhar opens up on his mother’s medical life
Having a medical life is not only about having a profession, it’s like having a second heart which beats perennially within your body— irrespective of time, circumstance or season. You need to feel connected with it every second in order to live up to the responsibilities. The sheer amount of responsibility this life holds is second to none.
Be it a sultry summer noon or a feezing winter night, you have to answer the call of your profession with utmost integrity as someone somewhere down the life is battling for his life or a newborn. Someone is grieving over his wounds or someone is undergoing the brutal pangs of trauma. Not only you have to answer the call as an amazing doctor but also as an amazing human without caving in to the pressure— 24*7 and 365 days a year in person and on phone.
From being selected as a fresher in a medical college to your retirement, every festivity and every joy feels subordinate to the joy you live as a medico dedicated towards fulfilling the role. It may sound hectic but the journey is worth the pain. Your life is the biggest story holding umpteen chapters of faith, perseverance, dedication and above all love towards humanity. You are literally exposed to a platform where colour, caste, religion or status doesn’t matter when you treat the folks. You have to deal with different stories, different languages, different emotions and different circumstances with the same unyielding integrity. Maybe that’s why doctor are hailed as superheroes!
No words could ever depict my mother’s role in shaping my personality. So I would like to dedicate a poem to all the resilient medical warriors:
Responsibility is the reflection of a person’s calibre.
She leads from the front line with her persona.
Patients call upon God.
God answers in different ways; one of them being
her indefatigable spirit and its umpteen tales.
IPD department is the synonym of miracle where
life confronts her arch rival.
The turf witness some of the most
intense battles day in and day out.
The horizon knows of her resistance;
the shores faraway have held the loftiest of tides
in its timeline.
Next day, a breeze gives glad tidings to the ambiance;
a newborn makes his way to the scene.
One more rigorous victory named to her aura.
Onlookers ask how she conquered the indefatigable;
to which she replies:
don’t look at the mountains above,
look within your soul—
for faith can move mountains.
About The Author Ali Ashhar is a poet, short story writer and columnist from Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh. He was named as one of the “30 Most Talented” personalities of 2022 by Hindustan Metro. He is the author of the poetry collection, Mirror of Emotions (Notion Press, 2021) and Across the Shore (Zorba Books, 2024). Following the release of his book, Mirror of Emotions, he was chosen as the Best Debut Author for the year 2021 by The Indian Awaz and was the recipient of a Foxclues India Prime 100 Authors Award. His works have been published extensively in the Europe and the United States of America. His works appear in Wild Court International Poetry Journal (King’s College London), Brio Journal (New York University), White Noise Zine (Illinois State University), The Sandy River Review (University of Maine), Live Wire, and The Bosphorus Review of Books, among others.
