I love hospitals!something i realized when i am about to leave one in six months;that huge statue of ganesha which made me think pretense vydehi is filled with,all the money they took from my father,the pride they stripped out of me when i waited for a seat outside the office now is sacred-sacred because it seems to unite so many people,from different walks of life,in different ways;I walk to the hospital thinking if i am dressed properly and simultaneously cursing the fact that i am not allowed to wear what i want(isnt freedom of expression a constitutional right?),about which teacher will yell at me,about the topics i had to study last evening and didn and then i reach the hospital to see this huge statue of an elephant faced god sitting right in the center with his huge belly and almost smiling face! then i realize that i am in a hospital and the air changes,i know that there are so many people who have come here to feel better,so many hope to ease the pain they feel in their bodies,all the way from bengal,from UP-many dont know what a heart does,why you miss periods,few cant even fill forms-all just to not feel pain!I am humbled,I am in a place where healing is taking place as i stand and think-someone's wounds are being dressed,some one else just received the news that she is pregnant,someone is getting their warts removed ,someone can see red clearly as his eyes are healed and someone is going to have a healthy heart in just a few moments from now-everything changes our lives and us every moment but here,lives are being changed in the most tangible form!There is life,there is death,there is pain,there are prayers,there are questions,hopes and there is wait!I feel so much and this great ganesha sits there telling everyone of his presence...poor thing! sometimes he is prayed to,many times put on trial,people interrogating him ruthlessly till they receive an answer for why such pain should be their lot?others abuse him,few stand there and fight with him saying that he doesn exist and everybody including him till this moment is a fool to have actually believed that something called grace exists-that he is just a stupid stone!to the poojari however he is his vocation for this life,someone who gives good karma and enlightenment.i see people with their heads on the slab,crying profusely shaking their heads from side to side,few others hold out their sarees to collect little grace if that god decides to bestow,some just sitting there and watching him in shock !my stability and stagnation is stirred by all this and this is a welcome disturbance-something is changed forever;I feel most human then-aware of all the pains and sorrows that befall our small hearts in spite of all the faith we have and that our hearts are not at all small! I suddenly want their prayers answered,i want the faith they hold to be proved right,i want the strength to change something about their lives,i want my life to be changed-everyday i go to ganesha to see all this and feel my role here as a healer-stones have power,they listen,they suck up your sorrow,they instill strength and for some souls they gift self esteem!
