Midweek Review
Stillborn in South Asia
By Lynn Ockersz
Stunted and wasted to the bone,
He is no tourist brochure pin-up boy,
As he lies huddled in his tumble-down cot,
An easy prey to disease and lingering death,
An unedited image of our development track;
And it’s not only the rural backwaters,
That those who know best have in mind,
When they unveil their bleeding stats;
It’s the country’s young as a whole,
Who are thus brought within their ken,
And we are left to make this solemn inference;
Stillborn lies South Asia’s future in its birth bed.