Vinita Salvi, Department of OBGYN

Who are the pillars of this institution?

Is it the Indian who thought of a college

just because he was

of a post denied

Or his fellow devoted countrymen

who zealously worked

to posthumously realise

his long cherished dream

Or is it the Scotsman who labored to build

an edifice in a foreign land

Was it just another job for him?

Was it the workers: simple, unlettered

Who toiled to construct a monument

That would far outlive their limited span

Would these stones speak that

For all of them it was a labour of love

Are the pillars the students

Who throng these portals

In their apparently endless

journey for knowledge

Their joys and sorrows

Filling the air

To mingle with the soundless

whispers of generations past

Are the pillars the teachers

Whose blood sweat and tears

are seeped into the very dust

Their words of wisdom

Seemingly lost

and buried

Crowded out in a world

of mundane practicalities

Or is it the patients

who throng the OPDs

Prodded and poked

scanned and investigated

Packed into wards

Choked to capacity

And operated in theatres long antiquated

In their desperate search

for medical nirvana

Are the pillars the residents

and other staff

Who though they think

they give so much

Rarely perceive

that as they were giving

How much in return

they had already received

With so many people milling about

The temporal jostling the ethereal out

All desperate to get into the shade

Of this great and blessed temple of health

Non sibi sed omnibus

Not for self but for all

Do these hallowed precincts really need

Pillars of strength?

(Or is it the other way round.)

So many claimants filling the place

institutional pillars personified

they thought.

Little realizing that all along

They were being upheld aloft

By the very foundation

They sought to support.

January 2003