On sore throat.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

Sore throat? You have it too! Must be the city’s bad air. Whatever, early in the month, as Delhi was beset by extreme pollution, customer relations manager Jasbir Chatterjee was forced to take three days’ leave due to “respiratory problems.” It was deeply frustrating, because she is very careful of saving her office leaves, to utilise them for truly important family occasions. Thankfully, she has recovered, resuming her long commutes to work at a commercial vehicles showroom in Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar. This weekend afternoon, at her residence in Vikas Puri, over a tasty fish curry prepared by husband, Sukhangshu, she reads aloud a poem she wrote on the disruption caused to her health, which, she feels, might have been the doing of the season’s pollution. She agrees to share the poem with us, and also agrees to be snapped with her husband, as well as with her daughter and son-in-law, who make fleeting appearances in the poem. Meanwhile, the apartment’s sole air purifier is lying inert in an inner room; the household not yet having picked up the habit of using the appliance as compulsively as it does its AC or water pump.

November of 2025

It started with just a slight sore throat,
I smiled and said, “There I go again.”
Some sneezes, some coughs, the body aches,
Kadha and ginger tea, steam and medicine—the usual game.

Saving my office leaves, I worked through pain,
Thinking, “Soon I’ll be okay.”
But this time the ache refused to go,

The throat grew worse, my chest felt tight,
Each breath was sharp, each moment long,
I cried, “Take me to the hospital!”

My family stayed calm; “Don’t panic, Mom,” they said,
Their steady words, a soothing balm.
Anubhav brought the Salbutamol pump,
And eased my breath in his gentle way, and somehow I felt lighter.

Not only because of the medicine,
But because of the love behind it,
The love of a son
I never had before.

Suroshri’s phone propped on a pile of pillows lay,
And soon, there was a doctor on the screen in front of me!
Tongue-tied I was, yet happy,
To see his face and hear that sound.
Then came medicines, the Vicks, the hot water bottle,
Khichdi and care.

Without my hands, all things were done,
By my dear Suroshri, my shining sun.
Doctor said, “You’ll be fine in five days,”
By day four, I was back in the office.

But what lies ahead,
Will November of 2026 treat me well?