Forensic Medicine by Gieve Patel

 Gieve Patel is a medical practitioner by profession and has earned a reputation as a poet, actor, dramatist and painter. His collection of verse are Poems(1966), How Do You Withstand Body (1976). Though sensitive to social injustice along with his own predicament as a Parsi Poet, one of the preoccupations of his poetry is with the physical existence of human beings-not just the living world but also the human body itself. In his poetry, we see a careful craftsman at work using precise and direct images, economy of words and vigorous and colloquial expression. His poems, though devoid of sentimentality are sometimes empathetic and always rich with irony.

“Forensic Medicine” was written by Gieve Patel. It was published in his second collection of poems, How Do You Withstand Body. He starts with a heart burdening picture of a fetus being destroyed in the embryo. The expert who examined the case says that a puerile in-law had thrust a glowing iron rods inside her daughter-in-law’s embryo to get rid of that little body growing up there. The author compares the women’s embryo with the sparrow’s nest. The humans don’t mind killing the fetus which would have come into the world smoothly tumbling down the mother’s embryo to the new blast of world. But the fetus gave up quietly without making any noise or protest.

The poet pinpoints that it’s not just in this case alone. But much worse things happens.  He tells that the human’s use rope, hatcher, knife, stone, bullet on the aged ones to show their harshness. He warns them that they won’t give up easily like the little fetus. The poet tells that if they are not satisfied with those means they can have a look at his forensic reports and the pictures there would help them a lot.

The poet tells that a human body undergoes many more ill-treatments like that of  chopping off the limbs, smashing the teeth, pushing splinters under the nails, adding acid in wine and much more. Few humans choose to ill-treat their own body as in the case of the one who commits suicide with a rope. In this case his tongue is cut off, eye balls pops and the sound of the dying human is always undermined. Hammering nails into the ear as a part of a punishment shows the violent side of the human nature.

The author sarcastically tells that after they had delighted by doing all this unmanly things even to the inner most parts of the body they should feel content. The author puts forth a kind request to all those unruly human. He tells that if at all they need to abort an embryo, they can choose a pen knife. He argues that it’s more than enough to cut the little sparrow’s neck  and he further adds that even that is not necessary because just by cutting down the cord that connects the mother with the embryo they can easily end up the life.

Thus this poem calls attention through its grotesqueness, to the violence inflicted upon the human body. The repulsively violent images are used to shock the reader  into an awareness of the objectification of the human body. The last lines of the poem reminds us that such violence is not new. It has been inflicted even ages before.

special thanks to: https://www.timeslearnings.com/2024/05/forensic-medicine-poem-gieve-patel.html

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