Last night I stayed up wandering the corridors of the Indian Spinal Injuries Center in South Delhi. No one knew I was coming, and I hadn't made any arrangements with any of the staff regarding my research. As I sat quietly in the emergency waiting room, family members who had just brought their loved ones through the door would sit, and in between their hushed conversations, wonder who I was. What was I doing there. I spoke to no one.
The canteen stayed open all night long, though the only time I felt comfortable bothering the attendant for a cup of coffee was when a doctor or some other hospital employee rapped on the glass window and woke him up. It was incredible how free I was to explore the hospital grounds at night. I found it easy to imagine myself as a runway patient, having escaped the confines of my hospital bed, exploring my prison like a ghost with nowhere in particular to go, drifting across the floor and rolling down the halls on a cushion of air. But I wasn't a patient. Everyone could see that. If my skin color were brown, and if my wheelchair were more rundown and rickety, perhaps a security guard would have approached me and asked for my patient ID tag.
I was sitting in the waiting room when two patients were brought in about an hour apart from each other. It was almost 1 o'clock when the small four-door car drove up under the emergency entrance sign and screeched its horn. The phone at the help desk rang, and the desk attendant pressed a button that alerted the staff in the intensive care unit with a mechanical buzz. From the corner of the waiting room where I sat out of the way, I heard a stretcher being unfolded, the patient being transferred hurriedly from the car to the stretcher, and I saw a young woman being wheeled into the emergency room with her face tilted to the side in my direction, one arm raised above her head. She dropped the arm to her side and groaned slightly as a few hospital workers pushed her through the double doors and out of sight. A rickshaw pulled up a few minutes later outside, and what looked to be a doctor in his day clothes, wearing a hair net, strode through the door and into the intensive care unit.
The second patient of the night arrived in a small van, with what seemed to be her mother, sister, and brother-in-law. The family walked the young woman through the door and directly into the ICU with the help of some hospital attendants. The young woman was wailing loudly, staggering as she walked. The taxi driver, the other staff workers, and even the help desk attendant himself stood and watched as the woman and her family hobbled down the corridor. I could not see what was going on, but I was more interested in the reactions of those in the waiting room than with what they saw. Gawking is a cultural norm in India. I suspect that no one would have thought twice if, despite my particular difference from everyone else in skin color and condition, I joined them in gazing at the patient who was making so much noise.
Soon afterwards, the sister and mother sat down across from me in the waiting room and spoke frankly with one another. I could tell that they were going over the sequence of events that had led them to the hospital. I suspected that the visit to the emergency room was no big surprise to them, that it was simply a matter of time. Perhaps it was an attempted suicide, or the rupturing of a chronic condition that everyone had hoped would remain delayed. The family looked concerned, but not distraught. They were reasoning through what had happened, why it had happened, and how things could have turned out differently.
All this made me think about how so much of our life demands explanation, and how the majority of our living consists of trying to explain what has happened to us. The businessman works hard to prove to himself that his education was worthwhile, the writer embraces the duality of life experience by creating beauty with words, and the maniac struggles to make sense of the visions, hallucinations, and dreams that have no place in the real world.
The injured woman began screaming again from the ICU, and once again everyone flocked to the door. After a minute, however, the mother abandoned the gawkers and shuffled thoughtfully back to her seat, looking at the floor, gazing out the glass window into the night. We both sat in silence, with our theories of what had happened, and our awareness that there would always be things in life left seemingly unresolved.
The marble floor of the hospital's main lobby was full of men, women, and children sleeping on blankets and sheets. I suppose they would sleep there every night for days to weeks on end. At 6:30 in the morning, a security guard would walk through the lobby calling out morning greetings in a loud and gruff voice. The visitors would roll up their makeshift mattresses, tie them to their backpacks or suitcases, and retreat to the hospital beds in the general wards, where their loved ones were just beginning to wake up themselves.
After a long night of observing, writing, and brainstorming plot developments and character development for my script, I took the elevator to the second floor to visit a young c5/c6 patient named Navdeep. We chatted briefly. I told him of my trip to Jharkhand and reflections on Valentine's day. He showed me a picture of his fiancee, Ameen, waiting for him back in Punjab. His was an encouraging story of two families, optimistic about their children's future, agreeing to the challenges of encouraging a marriage between a disabled and able-bodied person.
Content and very tired, I took an auto-rickshaw back home, ate my classic toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich breakfast, and fell fast asleep at 9am.
The canteen stayed open all night long, though the only time I felt comfortable bothering the attendant for a cup of coffee was when a doctor or some other hospital employee rapped on the glass window and woke him up. It was incredible how free I was to explore the hospital grounds at night. I found it easy to imagine myself as a runway patient, having escaped the confines of my hospital bed, exploring my prison like a ghost with nowhere in particular to go, drifting across the floor and rolling down the halls on a cushion of air. But I wasn't a patient. Everyone could see that. If my skin color were brown, and if my wheelchair were more rundown and rickety, perhaps a security guard would have approached me and asked for my patient ID tag.
I was sitting in the waiting room when two patients were brought in about an hour apart from each other. It was almost 1 o'clock when the small four-door car drove up under the emergency entrance sign and screeched its horn. The phone at the help desk rang, and the desk attendant pressed a button that alerted the staff in the intensive care unit with a mechanical buzz. From the corner of the waiting room where I sat out of the way, I heard a stretcher being unfolded, the patient being transferred hurriedly from the car to the stretcher, and I saw a young woman being wheeled into the emergency room with her face tilted to the side in my direction, one arm raised above her head. She dropped the arm to her side and groaned slightly as a few hospital workers pushed her through the double doors and out of sight. A rickshaw pulled up a few minutes later outside, and what looked to be a doctor in his day clothes, wearing a hair net, strode through the door and into the intensive care unit.
The second patient of the night arrived in a small van, with what seemed to be her mother, sister, and brother-in-law. The family walked the young woman through the door and directly into the ICU with the help of some hospital attendants. The young woman was wailing loudly, staggering as she walked. The taxi driver, the other staff workers, and even the help desk attendant himself stood and watched as the woman and her family hobbled down the corridor. I could not see what was going on, but I was more interested in the reactions of those in the waiting room than with what they saw. Gawking is a cultural norm in India. I suspect that no one would have thought twice if, despite my particular difference from everyone else in skin color and condition, I joined them in gazing at the patient who was making so much noise.
Soon afterwards, the sister and mother sat down across from me in the waiting room and spoke frankly with one another. I could tell that they were going over the sequence of events that had led them to the hospital. I suspected that the visit to the emergency room was no big surprise to them, that it was simply a matter of time. Perhaps it was an attempted suicide, or the rupturing of a chronic condition that everyone had hoped would remain delayed. The family looked concerned, but not distraught. They were reasoning through what had happened, why it had happened, and how things could have turned out differently.
All this made me think about how so much of our life demands explanation, and how the majority of our living consists of trying to explain what has happened to us. The businessman works hard to prove to himself that his education was worthwhile, the writer embraces the duality of life experience by creating beauty with words, and the maniac struggles to make sense of the visions, hallucinations, and dreams that have no place in the real world.
The injured woman began screaming again from the ICU, and once again everyone flocked to the door. After a minute, however, the mother abandoned the gawkers and shuffled thoughtfully back to her seat, looking at the floor, gazing out the glass window into the night. We both sat in silence, with our theories of what had happened, and our awareness that there would always be things in life left seemingly unresolved.
The marble floor of the hospital's main lobby was full of men, women, and children sleeping on blankets and sheets. I suppose they would sleep there every night for days to weeks on end. At 6:30 in the morning, a security guard would walk through the lobby calling out morning greetings in a loud and gruff voice. The visitors would roll up their makeshift mattresses, tie them to their backpacks or suitcases, and retreat to the hospital beds in the general wards, where their loved ones were just beginning to wake up themselves.
After a long night of observing, writing, and brainstorming plot developments and character development for my script, I took the elevator to the second floor to visit a young c5/c6 patient named Navdeep. We chatted briefly. I told him of my trip to Jharkhand and reflections on Valentine's day. He showed me a picture of his fiancee, Ameen, waiting for him back in Punjab. His was an encouraging story of two families, optimistic about their children's future, agreeing to the challenges of encouraging a marriage between a disabled and able-bodied person.
Content and very tired, I took an auto-rickshaw back home, ate my classic toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwich breakfast, and fell fast asleep at 9am.
