As a student, doing well in exams meant focusing on the syllabus. We knew this when we navigated our education system. For every examination, the most important issues for us were probably what was in the syllabus and what was not. I remember the enormous relief of not having studied a chapter and then being told by a buddy that it was out of the syllabus. I remember that amazing sense of lightness as if it had happened yesterday.
Anyway, life moved on. I completed my education and started working, and very quickly, the corporate world stamped its syllabus on me.
And for very long, “body language” was not in the syllabus, and I don’t think I paid too much attention to it.
I was in my early 30s and extremely impatient to succeed. My body language displayed that impatience. I learned to walk fast, talk fast, and respond fast! It was all about speed. I neglected to pay attention to body language and gestures because I was rushing to get things done.
Then one day, I hurt my back and had to make a trip to meet my doctor. Here is the story of how that visit went, and it’s about how body language and the world of human gestures entered my lexicon. It was only now that my syllabus began to include facial expressions, gestures, posture, and tone of voice as powerful communication tools.
Waiting for Dr. Joshi
I could see women fanning themselves with a rolled-up newspaper. There was a guy who was constantly fishing out an old, worn-out handkerchief to wipe away the sweat trickling down his forehead. The seats were plastic, and my arms were sticking to the armrests. It was Mumbai at its worst; the weather was brutally humid. The waiting room was crowded, and the fan wasn’t working properly. It was a big hospital at Mahim in central Mumbai.
There is a veil of tension that is visible on everyone’s faces; things are not right for anyone who is sitting here. Some are reading a newspaper to pass the time, and most are sitting silently as zombies in that interminable wait to meet the doctor. In our caste-driven society, the doctor’s waiting room is the ultimate level playing field. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Brahmin or a Shudra; it’s a long wait for either of you. Hospitals always smell funny, and I was tired of this strange odor invading my nostrils for the last couple of hours—a strange mix of antiseptic and floor-cleaning solutions.
Every so often, I would leave my book to guard my seat and get up to inquire about my doctor’s appointment. It was scheduled for 6 p.m., and now it was way past dinner time—almost 9.30 p.m.—and there was no sign of my turn in the foreseeable future. My back tore up into a spasm, even with the simple act of walking those 10 meters to the nurse’s station. The nurse was gentle. “Sir is too busy; I know it is hard to wait; another 15 minutes only,” she said in her Malyalee twang.
By now, the pain in my back had taken on a life of its own, waxing and waning in intensity. It alerted me to the torture I had inflicted on my spine by pounding tarmac streets and running marathons over the last 10 years. Running had always been a deeply spiritual sport for me; when I was on the road, I thought of nothing else. And problems, big and small, seemed to disappear under the relentless rhythm of feet on the road.
There was a price for that spiritual bliss, it seemed; sore knees and a badly hurt back had stopped me from running over the last month. Dr. Joshi, the orthopedic doctor I was meeting, had a reputation amongst my runner friends for saving many a running career. So here I was, hopeful yet enormously frustrated with my wait. It was close to 10 p.m., and by the time I could see, there were only two more patients ahead of me.
I had almost given up on meeting him today, and now I was hopeful. Finally, the nurse called me to go into the doctor’s cabin.
I walked in completely pissed off about having to wait so much. As I walked into the cabin, the doctor asked me to come in and sit down. The moment I was seated, he said, Please give me a few minutes more, and he took the time to keep scribbling his notes, possibly about his earlier patient, in his diary.
He took 3 to 4 minutes to do it, and I was furious beyond belief. He had kept me waiting for 4 hours, and he kept making me wait. Anyway, I tried to swallow my anger and sat quietly, clenching and unclenching my fist in my lap. Finally, after what seemed to be ages, the doctor finished writing. I still remember thinking, What a strange doctor! He has very good handwriting. The minutes following this are still etched in my memory as a slow-motion reel to this day.
He looked at me and said nothing. Here I was waiting to blurt out my injury, and he seemed to have all the time in the world. For a fast talker, walker, and runner like me, “no hurry” seemed to mean “no interest.” Unhurriedly, he opened a new page in his diary and wrote the date. I remember he underlined the date twice with his fountain pen. Those were the days before the cell phone revolution, and then he silently proceeded to take the rotary phone off the hook.
Then, still without communication with me, he got up to close his cabin door and latch it. He came back to sit at his table, looked at me, and said,” Sorry to keep you waiting; now I am at your disposal. Tell me what is bothering you." Never has my fury been transformed by three simple actions. His simple act of opening a new page for me, taking the phone off the hook, and closing the door told me that I had his complete attention. All the frustration of having to wait for so much time evaporated. At that moment, the doctor taught me a lesson for life: your gestures can show others that you care if you do care.
I wrote this story about Dr Joshi as a part of the wonderful writing workshop run by https://natashabadhwar.substack.com/s/ochre-sky-stories
Natasha Badhwa and
Love it- so evocative!
Very true! Your actions can demonstrate to others that you genuinely care, but only if your care is genuine.