Tablet Poem by Ananya Guha

Equipped with a tablet everyday
I fight a rising blood pressure
the pharmacist asks for prescription
what prescription I say don't you see
blood pressure is common, look at the noise,
the ruckus on roads, the noise pollution
the bomb explosion, everyone has got it.
It is a common prescription for the common man
You and me, my wife yours...

When the tablet is missing, there is a void
like a loss, friend's death.
The tablet gets stuck in coat pockets, pant pockets,
shirts, trousers and blazers.
The tablet accompanies long travel, by foot, road,
air.When the wind blows firecely the tablet fights
and hides in remote corners. What prescription?
It is a prescribed universal tablet with all this travel
running around, only to slink down the throat, like painful death.

I rummage for it when clothes are washed
when lunch or breakfast is ready.
It is not a turncoat, turns up every time.
Any time.

The pharmacist, the doctor orchestrate a common cause.
Fight for tablets. The armoury of both valid and the invalid.
The tablet fights a hundred deaths.
A hundred lives.
Stuck in a coiled, tinsel, wrapped paper it breathes perfection.

The kind, we need to live.