Hyphenated Identities: Anne Madhu Gammon

Anne Madhu Gammon was born and educated in Chennai, India where she discovered her mission and found the best way to be educated is be prepared to listen and look, then in asking questions. Having seen her father a lawyer, and mother full time homemaker give their time and ability to help those in need, inspired her to become a doctor. She graduated from Christian Medical College and specialized in Dermatology at Madras Medical College. She was involved in ICMR Delhi collaborative Research Study Project with Wellcome Unit CMCH Vellore, with her husband Keith known as ‘the surgeon with the golden voice and singing fingers.’ Madhu is Third-Degree Black Belt. She and her family reside in Princeton, NJ.

CARAVAN of FINGERPRINTS

From the day of first breath we are closer linked to life than death

I wonder then why do problems ever trouble me?

When dawn delight opens my sleepy eyes

I realize my own frailty without family

Lost without a single friend and community

O Lord have mercy! Oh! Where am I!

Who am I, but a humble bungling

Student on my knees!

Here I am, now in these Covid19 times

We come to re-think on these

That sneeze has multiplied a thousand rhymes

Caught in a winter freeze ...

Carried far by robust summer breeze

Beyond the trees, across the seas to overseas

To a new world power of statistics...

Tis not a tease.

Covid like a tempest has hit the world

And hurt us all…we are not at ease

We learn our lessons and take the cue

Made in India or USA… we do the best of right

Should we follow rules or be a fool?

Think on these…if we love ourselves, we are of better value

And able to love our neighbor better still

And if we love our neighbor, we show justice and forgiveness

As workings from our hearts

Walking humbly, hidden in plain sight.

As doctors, nurses, paramedics learn their arts

Of compassion for the wounded rubble…carry on

As made in India, seasoned in USA, and growing... we live and move

As God would have us do, with His mercy and Grace

We strive to do it right.

I learned LOVE, my parents’ sound advice

In times good and bad, be grateful, look to God, 

Help be a fix, in caring, for a solution, 

In practicing perseverance, learn to carry on in LOVE and PEACE.

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Hyphenated Identities :: Setu, August 2020