Waiting Room, Planet Earth
11:18 AM.
Waiting for my turn with the doctor. Sitting in the lounge area at the Hospital.
(My Funny Valentine, Chet Baker) “Your looks are laughable, unphotographable, Yet you’re my favorite work of art…”
Reading the introduction to The Book of Disquiet on Kindle. Listening to my favourite songs playlist on my headphones. Looking around.
(We Have All the Time in the World, Louis Armstrong)
“We have all the time in the world, Time enough for life , To unfold…”
A lady on my left is on a video call with an old person. Or maybe with someone holding the phone for them. The old person is the patient. Oxygen mask. Tubes. All kinds of hospital paraphernalia. Then the camera moves and shows the rest of the room. Relatives sitting around with that peculiar silence hospitals produce. The kind where nobody knows what to say anymore but nobody wants to leave either.
On my right, a man scrolls through his recent calls.
(Aanewala Pal, Kishore Kumar)
“हो सके तो इसमें ज़िंदगी बिता दो, पल जो ये जानेवाला है…”
The first name is ‘Mullah Ji.’ The rest are Hindu names. I start wondering if the Mulla ji is this person’s godman of some sorts. Then he opens WhatsApp. Endless religious greetings. Folded hands. Flowers. Gods arriving every morning as forwarded messages.
(The Golden Boy, Parov Stelar)
“I’ve got this feeling inside my bones…”
There are people of all ages here. Most look anxious, tired, pensive. Some seem on the verge of crying. Children alone appear untouched by the atmosphere. They are laughing, running around, asking for chips and cold drinks. They don’t know yet what life eventually becomes.
(Cry Me a River, Dinah Washington)
“Now you say you’re lonely, You cried the long night through…”
Perhaps that’s why childhood matters so much. It may really be the only phase of life where we are protected from the knowledge of what awaits us later. Hospitals. Reports. Medicines. Parents growing old. Our own bodies quietly beginning to betray us.
(Up – Solo Piano Theme)
There are no lyrics here. Only that strange ache the piano carries. The feeling of remembering something while it is still happening.
An old lady sits beside me gingerly, as if sitting down is only slightly less painful than getting up will be. After a while, a man, her son, I assume, comes and holds her hand while helping her stand.
(Look at the Sky, Osman)
“Look at the sky, I’m still here…”
How much of life changes in this simple holding of hands.
She must have done this for him once. Crossing roads. Getting off buses. Walking through markets. Holding his tiny fingers through fevers and fairs and childhood fears. And now life has quietly reversed the whole thing.
I look around at old people who must have once been strikingly handsome or beautiful in their youth. People who must have once looked into mirrors with confidence. Strange how time slowly removes everything we once thought was permanent.
(We Are Nowhere, Bright Eyes)
“We are nowhere and it’s now…”
Then I see a young woman walking across the lounge with an older woman, perhaps her masi, and a younger girl who looked like her sister. She was so beautiful that I couldn’t stop looking at her. Not glamorous-beautiful. Something quieter. Almost painful to look at. Like one of those statues of Mother Mary you see in old churches, except alive. Her eyes looked washed clean. As if life had already rinsed away whatever innocence usually remains at that age.
And yet there was acceptance on her face too. A kind of exhausted peace.
(Primavera, Ludovico Einaudi)
Again no lyrics. Just that flowing piano making the whole lounge suddenly feel like one continuous human tide. People entering. Leaving. Waiting. Hoping.
And I wonder, is there any meaning to all this movement?
All these people gathered inside a building full of corridors and machines where perhaps, years ago, there were only fields and trees.
People trying to save lives.
Trying to return to the lives they had before illness interrupted them.
Trying to welcome new life into the world too.
Sometimes it feels like this hospital lounge is just a smaller version of earth itself.
And I can’t tell anymore whether I am part of this scene or merely observing it. Whether I’m an alien or an Earthling.
Perhaps both.
Perhaps someone else sitting here is also typing something into their phone notebook right now:
Saw a man today. Middle-aged, but young in mannerisms. Wearing headphones. Typing feverishly on his phone. Must be messaging someone.
(In My Life, The Beatles)
“Though I know I’ll never lose affection. For people and things that went before…”
11:48 AM.