OPERATION MERMAID

A Siamese twin was born with one head and four limbs each, in Bangalore two years back. It took two different surgeries; The second one took twenty-seven hours and thirty-four member surgical team to complete it successfully. Hence a tribute to the surgical community in general.

Siamese, oft they refer, a birth so rare and indeed sporadic,

Fused twins aren’t they, union ever cephalic or podalic,
Creator confused and blind, so cruel and painfully funny,

A head with limbs bare, counted one too many.

A torso in comic fusion, the limbs in all counted eight,

Supernumerous at first sight, serving the child none right,

Locomotion awkward and tardy, towing on an uneven keel,

A fairly tale isn’t on view! its a mermaid so, so real.

Such quirks of fate evoke ripples in a quizzical delight,

Spare a minute in thought; share the hapless kid’s plight,

Mostly perish, a few flourish, even under a learned scalpel,

Decisions unsure only ensure free trips to gloom or hell.

Surgeons pondered so long, mayhem or marathon in mind,

Twenty seven hours under blade, revelation rare of this kind,

Heads and fingers in precision, under the ever glaring light,

Hours of sweat and toil, surgical dilemma ends in delight.

Invalid in look and motion, resurrected by surgical largesse,

Thee sever masses by tones; serve the masses with finesse,

Gods own tent on earth, surgeon’s tribe will fill with ease,

Thee, Surgeons are twice blessed, May their tribe ever increase.