Prayers & Prescriptions Poem by Padmanabhan Ananth

She's, on my mom's side, a first cousin
A chirpy cheerful octogenarian
With ever an old-world charm
And smile that will instantly disarm

She is just an old-time matriculate
But in many speaks quite proficient
All her waking time, she usually passes
In pious prayers and devout discourses

He is a specialist medical doctor
Curing his needy patients, his main chore.
He believes in hardly anything else
Even hasn't time for anything else!

He asked her: 'Mom, I so fail
To understand why at all
You must pass all your day's hours
In prayers whose every essence
You cannot even well perceive.'

Pleasantly she answered: 'Son,
Not all of them I do comprehend
In chaste Sanskrit that they are.
But tell me, the pills you prescribe
Do you know of their every content
And each of their composition? '

For long, over her message I mulled
I believe golden they are indeed
It's finally the faith that truly matters
Be it in your medicines or in prayers.