Spare the Warriors A Short Thread

We too have our lives, our struggles, our losses.
Yet we work 'not' from home,
For one common goal,
to battle one common enemy.

Wearing multiple layers of plastic
With PPE, masks and visors,
that are meant to shield not just us.

We find it hard to breathe.
We sweat & sometimes we bleed.
Spend more energy to be heard.
We itch & sometimes we faint
But stay put on the task
The task of not letting your health slip by,
& to stop you when you let your mask slip by.

Just to get accussed of being rude in return ?
As if we are a roadblock on your way to have fun !!

Engrossed in work we lose track of time
Till We hear a scream
From someone whose dear one has been brought in pulseless.

"Sorry, He lost the battle maybe it was written in fate." is all that one of us said.

The shift was getting over
But the mayhem got tough to handle,
We requested the security to step in,
and took the fire exit as per code violet protocol
to avoid the broken beer bottles.

On my way back home I see
hawkers flooded with customers and a lot of cheer.
The Pan Shop is crowded with a gang of friends sharing a few cigarettes and some bottles of beer.
All without masks and without any fear !!

'My mask protects you as your mask protects me'
I hold the urge to reiterate and create a scene,
'Maybe Fatigue has overtaken them too, not just me'
I mutter to myself, frown and towards home I steer.
To rush for a shower
To quickly wash off the danger.

Nothing more than a warm supper
and a warm cuddle I crave for.
After winding up the kitchen
and some more chores,
I gear up for another battle,
This time with slumber.
After hours of pondering, tossing and turning,
I manage to catch a wink.

Only to be woken up by a phone call
to help arrange a bed for a friend's relative before he sinks.

The morning drudgery gets done
In a semi drowsy state,
Till I take back charge
from those who stood all night on guard
fixing things that were broken.

Well, not all could be fixed
Some got mended, some broke,
Some just stabilised enough to pull on till the next shift.

Back on the battleground
we gear up and disperse
Some of us in the ICU
Breathing hard to make some breathe better.

The rest of us in the OPD
Screaming harder to make ourselves heard.

To segregate what can wait and what can't wait any longer
To convince some
to stay home stay safe
and
To urge others to rush to the HospitaI
before it's too late.

As we struggle with another Patient,
We cannot help but mumble
"Nothing seems to work no matter how much we try."

"What's Essential? What's not ?
Who's essential? Who's Not? "

"Can we not mull over this and focus on the airway please."

Another mob barges in & vandalises the place,
claiming their trust has been broken
& doctors are a disgrace.

Some of us got wounded
Some of us got exhausted
& couldn't keep up with the task
Some of us lost the battle because
You got offended & didn't pull up your MASK!