Sylvia's Journal

The hospital is getting pretty stale – all Axel’s meals, lunch and dinner, are the same; no interesting Indian food. The TV channels are also a bit limited. We are beginning to suspect that the blue sticker on his admission form meant ‘foreigner – treat accordingly.’

Today I happened to be in the room when the doctors (he seems to have three consulting doctors who seem always to be together) showed up for their morning and afternoon rounds. In the morning they stood, looking down on Axel who sat on a low chair, with their arms folded. It was clear who was up and who was down. Later in the day when they returned for their afternoon rounds Axel offered them chairs which they didn’t take, and so Axel stood up to minimize the up/down thing.

Later he was taken down to see the ENT doctor in the outpatient department. The attendant wheeled Axel in front of the busy waiting area, facing the outpatients as if he was going to give them a lecture – in his striped johnnie. Everyone stared at him. Here patients are really patients with very little concern for their psychological safety and privacy. I suppose in a country as full as this one such matters are trifles next to all the life and death stuff that is going on here.

I have been sitting in the stark hospital room. Luckily it’s a private room – he got upgraded after waiting most of the day in the emergency room for a double to open up – which never happened. I read and cross-stitch most days but today I left him for a long afternoon nap and made my way to the Indira Ghandi National Centre for the Arts.

The Centrer had put up a show of the ‘seven sisters.’ This refers to the six states in the far northeast – Sikkim among them – that have more affinity with their other neighbors than with India. The day program was rather limited because of the heat to small stall selling local handicrafts. In the evening, when Delhi wakes up, it gets a bit more interesting with dances and other performances.

Some of the wares for sale looked more like South African crafts and textiles than what I would have expected in this part of the world. One of the states, Nagaland, even sounds as if it should be in southern Africa.

There were few visitors which probably had to do with the temperature, 33 degrees Celsius, which made it tiresome to put one foot in front of the other. On my way out I stumbled on a magnificent exhibit called Oriental Scenery yesterday & tomorrow – two sets of matching views, one aquatints made by Thomas and William Daniell, 200 years ago, the other photographs of the same venues and from the same vantage points by contemporary photographer Antonio Martinelli. Aside from the magnificent images it made me realize that exploring India is a lifetime proposition.

We are once again changing our departure date although we won’t follow the ENT doctor’s advice to stay for another 2 weeks. We expect to be flying back to Kabul on Saturday since the (other) doctors could not say for sure he’d be discharged tomorrow (Thursday).

The ENT doctor had an intern sitting by his side who was from Kabul. He knew exactly what Axel was talking about when he referred to the ubiquitous Kabul dust (khAk) and the havoc that it had caused for Axel’s upper respiratory system.