Today I found myself in a hospital waiting room. With nothing else to do while we waited our turn, I watched the people around me. The different levels of urgency and/or stress on the faces was so relatable, considering the place.

The anxiety on the face of the old couple who entered was quite perceptible. The man was frail looking, but it appeared his wife was the one sick. He made her comfortable in a chair in a corner, took out the water bottle and made her drink from it before he walked towards the counter.

The father-daughter duo who entered resembled each other so very much that their relationship was a foregone conclusion. The same pair of glasses on their nose, the same nose and the same way the eyes crinkled when they smiled. She held his hand lovingly and led him to a seat before she too disappeared towards the counter.

The man who sat in the chair next to mine had a long white beard and salt and pepper hair that fell to his shoulder and a nonchalant expression. He looked like some kind of artist to my imagination. I imagined him writing, or painting, or even acting. All the time he sat there till his name was called, he was scribbling away in a book.

A young boy just past his teens, walked in who was at least seven feet tall. At least it looked so to me! Being very slim only made him look even taller than he actually was. He folded himself into a chair at the back and started scrolling through his phone.

The dark haired man sitting next to him seemed to be in pain. He impatiently snatched the paper off his wife’s hand to check something and literally threw it back at her. She quietly put it away in a file she carried looking close to tears.

Apart from the patients, in the waiting room were also two young women, staff of the hospital, in their uniform of knee length tunic and pants in a light shade of teal. They helped those who entered to find the right counter/queue. Their demeanour was cheerful and they dealt patiently with those who needed help.

In contrast were the pink and white shirts worn by some other staff members who I saw walk past in a hurry. The diagonal slash of pink on white of their shirts gave their ensemble quite a modern chic look. They looked like student nurses.

I also saw a couple of doctors saunter in and a couple more hurry through to another section of the hospital. In the meantime our number was called…. and that put an end to my people watching.

(I wrote this in September, just before leaving for the US but forgot to post. So here it is now, included in the November nattering!)

©️ Shail Mohan 2024