These poems on caregiving grew out of the moving stories and conversations at the community listening session organized by Pallium India. The session was led by Dr Rajani Surendar Bhat, Pulmonologist and Palliative Care Physician and Smriti Rana, Head Strategic Programmes and Partnerships, Pallium India at the Rotary House of Humanity, Bengaluru on 10 May 2026. One poem is also inspired by conversations with Dr. Shani Sequeira, Palliative Care Nurse Consultant, Pallium India.
My years of being an oral historian had taught me to listen. But this session made me especially aware of the transformative power of listening. My response to the stories of caregivers emanated as poetry that spoke of the intimate, shared space of suffering of patient and carer, and the difficult journey of the caregiving. These were not transcriptions that were amended, but listening reworking itself into words. Drawing on the ethics of oral history interviewing, I do not identify the speakers but let the pain of caring for a loved one speak.
I have gifted these poems to Pallium India as they work towards the launch of their palliative care services in Karnataka end of July 2026. These poems have been generously translated into Kannada by writer, translator and music composer, S.R. Ramakrishna. I shall be adding the translations to this page in the future.
These six poems are the first offerings of The Wisdom Project.
A mother waits
It feels heavy around my chest –
My ten-year old is breathless.
I never thought a mother’s life would be like this –
Filled with anxiety and little joy. A life without rest.
Time rushes past
Diaper change, medications, feeding, physio. Again.
The tea goes cold.
Dry throat. Dry eyes.
On the days she smiles,
The butterflies come dancing in.
Some thoughts on my father
My father was a strong man.
He could lift heavy bags of groceries,
Swing me off the ground when I was twelve.
My father was a joyful man,
Sometimes with wicked jokes
That made my mother fume.
Until cancer and the treatment made him frail.
And dependent. He hates that. I know.
We turn him carefully every two hours,
To ease the bedsores.
He looks away from me as I change him.
In my heart I ask for forgiveness.
My starving Buddha, lend me your strength
That you have hidden within!
The way my mother lived
Until the day she died, my mother
Never forgave herself.
For a thought she had harboured within,
And only once let slip –
“I pray he dies before I do!”
She had rasped about my brother.
Her son who was severely autistic.
“Who will care for him when I am gone?”
Now, years later, when both have died, I lie awake
Thinking of the fear and guilt
She lived with.
The loneliness of caring
My mother was a woman who everyone came to for advice.
She was the wise woman in the neighbourhood.
Until dementia took away who she used to be.
She no longer knew who I was.
And with deepening disbelief, I too
No longer knew who she was.
This woman who saw snakes in her room,
Cursed loudly in a vocabulary I didn’t know she possessed.
Yet nobody had told me of the two-fold loneliness of being a caregiver:
I live with a stranger now, and nobody visits.
A different goodbye
They did not tell me what would happen in my father’s last days.
They convinced me that they would take good care of him.
That the ICU was the best place. That there would always be doctors and nurses to rush to his side.
But I saw the fear in his eyes, the blue patches on his arms, his restless discomfort.
“I just want to scratch my nose”, he whispered once.
His hands were tied. This I had not expected.
Then he shut his eyes so tight against the pale yellow light. Never opened them again.
He wasted away far from our love, our touch.
His last days sapped him of dignity and drained us of all our money. I often wonder, could we have scripted a different goodbye.
Finding Strength for my sister
They tell me she has aortic stenosis
She is breathless, crying like a child.
My sister who is older than me.
“I feel so helpless!” she tells me.
How shall we manage -the treatment, the care, the costs?
I dam up my tears as she speaks of euthanasia –
Is that a possibility? The end of suffering, may be?
The howl within has the taste of salt, it melts and merges into the sea
Of my weeping. Swimming across is the only way.
Holding my anxious body against hers, I push with all my strength
to keep us afloat.
A turbulent wall of dark waters rises ahead.
I brace myself knowing its fury matches my own.
6 responses to “Six Poems inspired by Caregiving”
Beautiful poems Indira! I have experienced this, I spent months caring for my mother post a bungled surgery and felt often that the worlds of the “ill” and the worlds of the “well” were two completely different spaces. Negotiating her frustration at being dependent was the hardest challenge.
That is so true, Deepa. And yet when we are care-givers we so often put aside the world of the “well” as we get drawn into the world of the “ill”. The Wisdom project will present stories of care-givers and I am working on a couple of stories based on interviews I did. Let me know if I could interview you on your caregiver journey. Thanks, Deepa.
Every poem here has a thought, feeling or phrase that brings me back to joyful or funny moments I hold fast in my heart. And to painful moments I wish I could forget but continue to reveal more about life and love as time goes on. Thanks for sharing.
Dear Indira, these poems are just so beautiful and so profound! So much of what you’ve written resonates with me, bless you! You truly have such a gift , lots of love ,
Joanna
Touching, thought provoking
“I live with a stranger now, and nobody visits.”
So evocative.
One can (also) be in a crowd, and so very alone when care giving.
And what of the stranger we, ourselves, might become ?
Thank you, dear Indira, it is an honor to both hear and read your words 💜.