Back in the crowded OPD, meaning slips through my fingers like water. Patient after patient – or more precisely, one kin group after anothe...
Back in the crowded OPD, meaning slips through my fingers like water. Patient after patient – or more precisely, one kin group after another – enters. The flow is relentless. A doorman attempts to maintain order. He guards the door, a thick stack of medical cards on a stool in front of him.
Every time the door cracks open, more faces peer inside, hoping for their turn. He calls out names, Ashraf Hussain! Irfana Maqbool! Another family shuffles to the front and edges inside. The doorman hands them their white medical cards, many of them worn and palimpsestic. The door slams shut.
Inside, I watch Dr Manzoor, patients, and kin engage in rapid-fire ex- changes in Kashmiri and Urdu. There are a dozen people in the small room at any given time – one family being attended to, the next on standby. Their presence lingers long after they depart.
I smell a warm, musky hearth, pine trees, rose water – an earthy, smoky, and floral bouquet – signalling winter’s approach. Some exchanges are wordless, consisting only of scrawls of “CST” – continue same treatment – which will be exchanged for psychiatric drugs (if available) at the hospital’s pharmacy or from one of the more...
