Who Cares Poem by Nikhil Parekh

Who cares whether I slept on a furry quilt of satin or a blanket of acridly pointed thorns,

Who cares whether I ate in plates coated with scintillating silver or didn't consume food at all,

Who cares whether I used perfumed soap to scrub my persona or bathed in water leaking abundantly from the gutters,

Who cares whether I wore linen suits blended with rich denim or was wandering in unscrupulous rags on the chilly streets,

Who cares whether I studied diligently browsing trough complicated literature or gallivanted through the country farm,

Who cares whether I took medicine in high fever or gulped sips of red wine to go off to sleep,

Who cares whether I played with ornately embellished soft toys or contented myself molding incongruous shapes in disdainful clay,

Who cares whether I traversed the streets in luxury sedans or spent marathon hours to reach my destination barefoot,

Who cares whether I deciphered mind boggling puzzles or smoked cigarettes incessantly on the house terrace,

Who cares whether I bought fresh fruits from the market or plucked them surreptitiously from the orchard tree,

Who cares whether I flew in the grandiloquent aircraft or swam across choppy waves of the ocean to witness the world,

Who cares whether I behaved somberly in front of my elders or barked a volley of abashing expletives at the same,

Who cares whether I clambered up stairs leading to the sacrosanct church or whiled away the whole of the day gambling for money,

Who cares whether I spent the afternoon relishing the cool air of the airconditioner or perspired like a bull under the sweltering sun,

Who cares whether I celebrated several festivals or feasted on intoxicating beer every night,

Who cares whether I trimmed my moustache scrupulously every day or let my beard grow the way it wanted; taking random roots,

Who cares whether I lead my life doing benevolent deeds or spent the remaining part of it in despicable jail,

Who cares whether I mixed in the high society or had a group of dreaded gangsters as my roommates and friends,

Who cares whether I had blissful dreams in the night or woke up with petrified jerks every ten minutes,

My parents had left when I was an innocuous kid; the treacherous tyranny of a car crash rendering them dead,

And the adulterated society in which I existed today had unanimously christened me an orphan,

Made me wholesomely numb to the spirit of love; made me forget the essence of the word care.