A memory came
Of many years ago.
I must have been in
Class 7 or 8.
I was lying in bed
In the ancestral home at Changanacherry,
Had come there from Kolkata
for my summer vacation.
In the next room,
My mother and several sisters-in-law
Were chatting.
About their children
The chatter woke me up.
My mother said, “My son is quiet and well-behaved.”
Another woman said, “My son is the opposite.
Restless and mischievous.”
The other mothers joined in.
Talking about their daughters and sons.
Today, when I remember this,
I think to myself,
From the time we are born,
Till the day we die
And even after,
People are always evaluating you.
First, it is our parents,
Then our siblings, friends and relatives.
Teachers and classmates.
This carries on
In college,
Professors and fellow students,
The University Board
All measuring your performance,
Ready to congratulate or condemn you
When you go to work.
Bosses, colleagues, subordinates,
The management
All assessing your work,
And your character
From morning to night.
And now since it is work from home,
From night to morning, too.
In the meantime,
Your wife and children
Are also evaluating you.
In this pandemic world,
They think: does the old man have the cash
To meet our expenses?
You go to the hospital,
The doctor evaluates you
Not to forget,
At different times,
The dentist, the ophthalmologist,
The dermatologist,
The gastroenterologist
The cardiologist.
Depending on which part has broken down.
You feel like screaming
God, is there a single moment when I am
Not being assessed.
God is the wrong person to ask.
Because He is the master of
The appraisal.
When you die, he is busy peering into your soul.
Is he a good or a bad guy?
Should I send him to heaven or hell?
And then you resign yourself
To the fact.
The appraisal will never stop.
And when there is an unnatural death,
Then it is the turn of
Human beings to cut open your body
And poke about,
Looking for this and that.
A post-mortem.
Ha, ha, no respite at all!