Neetha Kunaratnam
Presenting to the class,
my quietest student asks
how we’d react
if we saw a stranger
bleed out in the street.
Her sequence of slides
on the bystander effect
claims we won’t stop,
trusting paramedics
to get there in time,
a first-aider to surge
from the crowd
and tourniquet with rags,
or a passing priest
to observe the last rites.
Her voice bristles
as she tells us of
the culture in which
to mind one’s business
is to turn one’s back.
There are no questions
in the pensive room,
as we watch the footage
one more time:
the van knocking over
the child, the eighteen
witnesses ghosting by,
the car that snaps her frame,
and the exhaust fumes
that linger in its wake.
Neetha Kunaratnam has won the 2007
Geoffrey Dearmer Prize. He was born
and grew up in London, of
Tamil-Sri Lankan parents, but has
lived in both Japan and France –
and speaks French, German and Spanish.
