She does not understand. As she sits with a blank face in front of one of the government hospitals for the last four days, she does not understand. With a round little hand where veins have succumbed to the prolonged insertion of an intravenous cannula, she does not understand. Perhaps, because the sun asserts its might in a tropical summer and flies hover relentlessly looking for continuous moisture on her body, she does not understand. I walk past her. I do not try to explain. I do not know how to explain. Or what to explain. I stand at a distant corner stealing one more glance at her. How do I tell her that people who were supposed to let her hand free of that pain are protesting inside? How do I explain to her that she has been insensible to land up here on the footpath when hundreds or even more suffering, anguish-stricken souls inside are voicing their fear of being brutally assaulted by people who come for treatment to these places? It does not matter if she did not cause the harm; it does not matter if these are the same people who could give her mother no bed when she was brought here for childbirth; it does not matter if they did not raise a protest then because patients were suffering, not their fraternity. All of it matters now. At this hour. Because their rights have been violated. She must suffer for belonging to the faceless chunk of population sans affordability who come here, because a section of them have done terrible things to the educated elites – those who have been chosen by God to grant a fresh lease of life to the dying; those illustrious young people who will become famous for their talents and skills at handling two hundred and six bones inside the human body and other related organs; those who will add to life expectancy in human population by virtue of their research and merit to populate the world with a species that does not understand each other’s suffering. Sometimes she peeps inside the premises. I have this silent unbearable streak of shame hitting me as her eyes catch a glimpse of young educated elites shouting slogans and clapping to register their protest against tyranny. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, they say. A protest bordering on a revenge against the powerless is difficult to understand.  There is this private hospital at a little distance. There they are doing everything she needs to have done to herself. But the elders who seat her on their lap as they wait beneath a tree on the footpath seem apathetic. They do not want to know that there are other places they can take her to. It seems they do not have what it needs. Lackings are difficult to handle. Her elders lack affordability. She lacks wisdom. I lack the language to justify her condition. Just as people there inside lack good sense to register limits of human tolerance. 

Long live revolution!