In the doctor’s office.
( A true story )
A silky draft danced into the doctor’s room, licking my feet and legs. The chill felt so sharp, I wanted to bend over and rub my limbs to warmth. Instead, I lay suspended on the high bed by the broken window, needles poked into me at various angles on my bum, compelling me to stillness.
I was a shadow to all those who entered the room to visit the doctor, hidden partly behind a flimsy excuse for drapes, more a symbol of separation than an efficient one. The symbol was enough. I could choose to remain a voyeur in the room because of it, albeit with my ears.
I listened.
A passionate discussion about strange meats took off.
- Did you know that people eat monkeys in China?
- Oh, forget about China, they do that right here in Dehradun as well. They just hit the monkeys over their heads and…
- And crocodiles too, people love to eat crocodiles, little ones, straight out of the rivers!
- Where?
- Oh, just everywhere.
- Really?
- Yep. And have you ever wondered where all the little kidnapped children go?
- Where?
- Food. They’re food. Humans are jungli I tell you. Haven’t you heard about the case in Delhi, where they found a little girl’s finger in the meat in a big hotel?
- Oh my God.
The conversation intensified, I could hear the doctor’s footsteps, with a few hmms and haans in between. I saw from the corner of my eye that he continued to poke his patients with precision. It seemed he was pleased with the distraction that they had effortlessly created for themselves.
- So what do you think doctor?
- Yes yes, there is cannibalism. Insaan se bura koi jaanwar nahi.
The pair of animal eaters were content with his answer. Silence ensued. Not even the clock ticked, and I wondered about the time.. how long had passed since I’d been poked? Not more than ten minutes maybe… I felt frustrated. I was not enjoying my own company. My mind played mindless mind games and I just wasn’t having it. I’ll sing myself a song, I thought to myself. I so I began to drift…
Quand il me prends dans ces bras,
Il me parle tout bas,
Je vois la vie en rooooose…
Il me dit des mots d’amour,
Des mots de tous les jours,
Et ça me fait quelque chooseee…
Il est entré de mon coeur,
Une parte de bonheur….
I imagined Edith Piaf on the streets of Paris, cold and shivering and singing, just like I was in that moment. She sang to soothe her soul, I sang to feel mine. So what if no-one could hear me ?
I drifted away to France.
‘Aaiyee; welcome!’, shouted the doctor, jolting me up from the half slumber I had dozed into.
‘Ji ji ji ji, Waheguru Waheguru Waheguru’, came the response.
‘Haanji’, doctor echoed, ‘Waheguru, Waheguru!’
‘My poor husband. Now all he says is the Lord’s name - Waheguru!’
‘Waheguru, Waheguru’, repeated the doctor, with playful earnestness. ‘How are you doing today? Your lovely wife has come to give you company here again? Come on, let’s get you started ’.
With every needle that poked into him, I heard the Lord’s name again. Waheguru took on a certain musicality in my mind. I continued to sing to myself. Sing-chant rather.
Waaaaheeguruuu. Waaaheeeguruuu. Waaaaheguuurruuu Raba Waaaheeeguruuu.
I lost track of the conversations around me, I heard only bits and pieces now. The puzzle was mine to make later. I guess I’m making it now as I write.
- ‘He used to love gardening. All our household compost would go straight to the garden, where he would grow all sorts of vegetables, ohhh, ohhhh, and the most beautiful flowers. And he made lovely pasta. Only he could make the garlic sauce taste so good.’
- Garlic sauce? Tell me, tell me - how did he make his garlic sauce?
- Oh! First, he chopped up the garlic. Waheguru, he diced it, into little little pieces. Then, he added the tomatoes, lots of them, fat juicy tomatoes from the garden. Then! Oh then he would add all those sauces. You know those foreign sauces? Those ones. And ketchup and a little sugar. Salt and some pepper. That’s it.
No jeera?, I heard an Aunty ask, outraged. No tadka?
- No no. Then it will become tamaatar ki chutney. Garlic sauce doesn’t need jeera Aunty-ji.
- Oh.
My mouth watered. An hour must have passed by now?, I wondered. Four hours since I’d been awake and hadn’t eaten. Uncle’s garlic sauce pasta sounded sensational.
Dreams of breakfast motivated me to shuffle just enough to peak at the wall clock through the ripped drapes. Finally! I could go home.
mohini
