Poetry

The Waiting Hours

This is a hospital

The waiting hour seems unending

Like an anaconda, the line begins

But seems to end nowhere

 

Not only the aged

Here is a line of the sick

Of all age groups

Some chatting endlessly

Others as quiet as the dormouse

 

The racket of sounds from all corners

Gives a nasty headache

Amidst the rickety ticking of the newsreader no one is listening

 

Why can’t people sit quiet? I ask myself

And get no answer

How can people talk so much

I speculate

 

 I am bewildered

if this is a hospital

Or a fish market

Everyone has a mobile

Either he is talking loudly to someone

Or chatting nonsense

God alone knows

 

Sitting tired and exhausted

I pray

All keep their mouths shut and relax

My headache grows wilder

As I close my eyes and ears

To seal me from this rough disturbance

 

~Shobha Diwakar

Jabalpur, India

3 Comments

  1. It’s true in hospitals where silence should be maintained you often find it to be noisiest place. There seems to be no sense of respect towards those patients who would like some peace & rest while waiting for their turn to see the doctor. Hopefully your poem Ms Diwakar will awaken at least some people & make them aware of their sense of duty & responsibility towards others

  2. Ms.Diwakar, through her poem has drawn a true picture of a Hospital Waiting Room. The waiting seems to stretch hours on end which itself makes the patient restless ,on top of that the noisy atmosphere adds to the misery of the patients and makes them feel worse than the malady itself. Awareny is what is required and hopefully Ms. Diwarkar’s poem will help people to realize the importance of maintaining silence in a Hospital.

  3. thank you ASB and Manju Naik for your very sensitive comments . I feel that people accompanying patients should not be made to sit in the patients’ waiting area unless the patient is serious or unable to support himself or herself whatever the case may be. People talk so loudly amongst themselves or chat and yap endlessly on their mobiles as though they are sitting in a market place, its so disgusting and irritating that it makes one sicker than before