One flu from the sty - A poem by Abhishek Dandekar

Oink, Oink, they said,

And they flew from their sty,

Before all could figure how to fly,

The doctors sprayed chemicals, and many had to die,

One managed to escape,

By hiding on a man's nape,

The man rode on his way home without a hint,

Wearing his sunglasses that gleamed with a glint,

Soon disaster struck and the poor guy sneezed and sneezed,

And heavy coughing had his lungs squeezed,

So he ran to the private clinics, all scared and panicky,

Some doctors treated him lightly but one was finicky,

The finicky one studied him thoroughly and diagnosed his disease,

The doctor understood the gravity of it and knew it can’t be treated at ease,

So he made the man rush to a Government hospital in a hurry,

Where the chaos was humongous and everything in a flurry,

The man had started losing his patience and the time was running out of clock,

But the beds were short of numbers and the drugs falling out of stock,

He waited and waited and now his body had started growing weak,

His patience was now dying out and hopes were going bleak,

He collapsed on the floor and that drew him attention,

He was hurried on a stretcher and driven through the commotion,

He was needled and shot with several vaccines on his arm,

It was late by now and the medicines failed to keep him calm,

His heartbeats kept rising and his body was shaking with a slew,

So the doctors called in his family and gave them a clue,

Soon he gave out his last breath and closed his eyes that shone a brilliant blue,

The newspapers flashed headlines the next day “One more death in Mumbai from Swine flu”.

-Abhishek.Dandekar