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Call him back?




   Today, in this huge, busiest government hospital, 

     In the retinal department,
There were eyes covered with bandages, hopeless women in crushed sarees carrying around their appointment cards, clueless search for room numbers, the frustrated guards, women holding their crying infants in their laps hoping for them to be patient, kids snatching cellphones from parents to play games and and those occupied doctors!
Cacophony, pain, despair.

 While in this room 155, where a patient was getting checked by this female doctor, an old man entered.
There was a huge line of patients outside 155 but this man just entered.
When I looked at him, I decided to pen him down.     
Lean, hunched back, his white hair barely grew, he took the smallest steps..                                              
That innocence in his eyes and then he smiled to the doctor, passing those documents he said
"Ye lelijiye" 
Oh you could sense his pain. How sweet those words sounded. But the obvious suffering he was suppressing, couldn't go unnoticed.

 For a fraction of second, she looked at him. Busy scribbling, she said
"Baba, bahar jayo"
Her tone was sharp.
He looked at me. 
Curiosity and confusion.
He looked at her with hope and said
"Wo bole the ye andar deke aao" 

 "Bahar jao, baad mei bulayenge" She did not just say those words, she threw them at him.
He smiled and his head hung down.
He, expressionlessly, almost whispered "acha"
With those small steps, he left the room
I could rather see a huge line behind him...Despondency, pain, dejection, sufferings.

 When I came out of 155, I saw him standing at the end of the line, all alone. He looked at his papers of which I'm sure he barely understood a thing. Then, at the crowd. He probably longed for a company. Someone he could talk to. Or was he just an observer like me, who has settled his terms with his suffering and chooses to smile at all, for all?

 I walked away wondering if the doctor would remember calling him back.










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