These are just a few of the poems written by the young people Caroline worked with in Rural Rajasthan. Thanks to a brilliant idea by Lucy Mathen, who founded the charity Second Sight (www.secondsight.org.uk), Caroline flew to India in September to work with young people who had recently been cured of cataract blindness to help them write poetry about how they see the world. 

Village in the Sky

We are spacemen in aeroplanes.
We wear beautiful clothes and eat beautiful food.
Just as the bird flies, we fly. 

After dying, people float
to the sky and we welcome them.
There are gardens up above
and schools in the sky. 

Every person has a beautiful bungalow
equipped with floating cows and buffaloes, 
T.V, fridge and washing machine.
There are decorated shops in the sky. 

When everybody lives in the sky,
what will be the use of the earth?

By Pooja Parmar (aged 17)   

Hut

The moon is there, about to rise.
Crops. Dark green crops. Two feet high.
Wavy sky. A girl, she is happy.
I don’t know what she’s thinking.

By Suresh Kumar  (aged 10) 

The Watch

The watch is unique.
For every person, poor or rich,
the watch makes them reach in time.
Everyone is happy, seeing the watch.
The hands move all day long,
not for themselves, but for the people.
On hand, in home or vehicle,
the watch is present everywhere.
Without it, time is always wasting.
The watch makes everyone reach in time.

By Azaz Ali    (aged 13) 

Bisalpur

The men wear saris with beautiful designs
and scarves over their heads. Hang the streets
with lotus flowers for the celebration.
Everyone’s scared of the biting monkeys,
children hit rubber balls with bats,
the sky is pink. Parrots grow from the trees like apples.
The temples can stay, but remove the schools.
Send the adults back to kindergarten!
There will be no fighting
between mother in law and daughter in law,
just chocolate shops and telephones and men in saris
keeping house, visiting beauty parlours.
The women work late at the office
in my village of Bisalpur.

By Dipika Parmar (aged 21)