INDIRA LAISRAM

(25 August 3:05 pm) I count the days. It has been a week here. I am struggling, literally. I can’t go inside the ward save for giving food or water or taking blood samples to different departments or talking to a doctor. Only one attendant can stay with the patient and two or three during the visiting hours in the evening. Of course I am in and out most times but I don’t stay too long inside because I don’t want to break the rules. The doctors and nurses have been kind, they have allowed me access most times and I don’t want to take advantage of their niceness. The August heat is bearable, thank God. Still, I am coming from the height of winters in Australia and my body is in every bit of shock. Lack of sleep, heat, people, noise, traffic. Outside the ward, there are just three benches and they are never empty. There is no waiting room in the building, I am told there is one outside next to the main gate but that is apparently packed beyond capacity. I once asked the guard abo

Spending time at a hospital is definitely not one of life’s best experiences. But it is here that you learn about life. You come to the daunting realisation that life is so limited in many ways. I spent almost a month at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, starting mid-August. I was not taken ill, someone close to my heart was. This is India’s premier medical institute where thousands of patients from all over India come for the right diagnosis and treatment of their illnesses.  Sitting at C5, the paediatrics ward of the hospital, I had penned down a series of thoughts that floated in my head at that time. Here are my reflections. Bed No 7: We have a window just next to the bed. It allows us a peep into life outside the confines of this room. A sharp contrast. People everywhere, so are monkeys in almost the same amount of number clambering on the locked window sills looking for food until a doctor comes and shows them a syringe. They flee. They too know

For two months on end, I have been away and completely neglected you. I did not mean to. I had to fly continents away for a grave reason. In the face of illnesses, you have to do what your heart wants – give support – especially when it concerns someone who means the world to you. I wear my heart on my sleeve and that is why I was away. While I did miss coming back to you to share my thoughts or give you a peep into my moods and memories or even reflect on life in general, I did something. I wrote a big diary on what went on those two months which I will translate on to you. You see, technology and the internet in India still comes in between our friendship, which is why I resorted to the old school of writing, taking a pen and paper. I discovered a new joy. I bought a lovely hand-made paper diary, its pages as smooth and soft as silk and writing on those pages was often accompanied by a twinge of guilt, as if one was abusing a virgin. Hmmm… I am reading Fifty Shades of Grey and