Choopu to Clinics

Grab your cup of chai or beverages of your choice and let’s explore waiting Rooms of my experience…

A waiting room has a story to tell each time I visit it. We arrive there because the body is in dis-ease, and somewhere within that space, we wait for it to be brought back into ease. Over the years, I have come to feel that the way a doctor holds that transition, from discomfort to clarity, reveals something of their practice and their person.

My earliest memory of a waiting room goes back to the 1980s, soon after we moved to Chennai. Our family doctor, Dr. C. R. Venkataraman, was affectionately called Doctor Mama. To us, he was not just a physician but a familiar presence, someone who belonged as much to our family as to his profession.

In his clinic, my younger sister and I carried our small world with us. There was the choopu, a wooden kitchenette from home, held tightly between us as we haggled over who got to keep it. We looked so alike that we were often addressed together, almost as if we were a single person with a shared name.

Amma would sit nearby, her attention divided. She was worried about our health, yet constantly alert to the sound of the bell that would call the next patient. Her voice carried a quiet irritation, not towards us, but towards the situation, the waiting, the uncertainty. She would remind me not to lose the choopu, knowing well that I would cry later if I did.

Meanwhile, my sister and I ran around the waiting room, drifting closer to the space near the doctor’s room. From there, we caught glimpses of him, a figure both familiar and distant, someone we orbited before being called in.

The waiting room was silent, as much as children would allow it to be.

Then the bell would ring.

His voice, clear and steady, would call, “Next.”

In that instant, everything shifted. Amma would gather us, almost shepherding us into his room. The movement from waiting to being seen felt sudden, like crossing an invisible line.

Inside, Doctor Mama would greet us warmly, often making a small joke that softened the moment. He would check our temperature, listen with his stethoscope, and examine us with an ease that seemed practiced yet personal. I was terrified of injections, and there was no way I would accept one without resistance. He, in turn, had his own quiet repertoire of tricks to manage that fear. Somewhere between persuasion and gentle authority, he would get it done.

And often, there would be a small candy at the end, a gesture that restored balance in a child’s world.

Years later, when I visited him during my college days, the waiting room felt different. I was no longer running through it. I would sit, sometimes alone, sometimes with my parents, as an attendant. The clinic would be filled with the sound of Carnatic music playing softly on the radio. It no longer felt like a place of anxiety. It felt like old friends meeting, catching up, and leaving with a prescription. His presence had a perceptive calm that I can now only attribute to years of seeing patients and understanding them beyond symptoms.

Another phase of my life brought me to Dr. Vijayakumar Sivam, my psychiatrist. His waiting room was markedly different. It carried a silence that felt unusual, almost awkward. Each person seemed enclosed within their own thoughts.

My father, who accompanied me, was always uneasy in that space. He preferred to finish the visit quickly and leave. There was a nervous urgency in him that resisted the stillness of waiting. In contrast, I found myself becoming more composed. Around that time, after attending a Pranic healing class, I had begun to sense what I understood as Ki or Prana in spaces.

His consultation room had a strong, unmistakable presence of that energy. It felt focused, almost structured in its quiet intensity.

Unlike modern clinics, there was no television. No distractions. Just people sitting with themselves.

I had no hesitation in letting another patient go before me if they seemed more in need. My father would quietly disapprove, and later, on our way home, I would receive a sharp word. But even then, I remained untroubled by it.

There was also another doctor, referred by Doctor Mama, a diabetic specialist who was a follower of Mirra Alfassa. His waiting room was chaotic, filled with movement and noise. Yet, I found myself drawn to the images on the walls, especially those of The Mother’s eyes and various medical charts. Even in disorder, something held my attention.

After my marriage, when I moved to Singapore, waiting rooms took on a different character. My doctor there, a Singaporean Chinese woman whose name I no longer recall, had a clinic in the next block of our Yishun flat. The waiting room carried the muffled hum of Chinese conversation. When I sat down, it would often quieten. The silence there was of a different kind, not empty, but contained.

The experience of Prana varied with time of day, sometimes present, sometimes faint. The waiting was often long, but the energy felt subdued compared to what I had known in India.

The gynaecological waiting room in Singapore was another world altogether. There, I noticed a different kind of discomfort, not mine alone, but shared. Husbands who accompanied their wives often seemed uneasy, unsure of where to sit or how to belong in that space. Some stood near the door, waiting for a signal to step in.

Later, in the United States, at Kaiser Permanente, the waiting room felt calm in a measured, understated way. My doctor, Dr. Sarah Galvin, carried a warmth that made the consultation feel reassuring. Before I left for India, she was expecting a child. I often wonder about that child now, who must have grown up.

The energy there was mellow, balanced, neither intense nor chaotic.

In contrast, Indian waiting rooms, as I have come to experience them, are bright, strong, and alive.

In recent years, after Doctor Mama, I have been consulting Dr. Harikrishnan. His waiting room carries the same collected calm as his personality. The process feels organic, supported by an efficient staff, where waiting does not feel burdensome.

At SCARF, where I consulted Dr. Shantha Kamath, the waiting room was marked by a steady rush. The energy there felt darker, more anxious, shaped perhaps by the nature of the conditions being treated. Yet, the continuity of care, following the prescription first given by Dr. Vijayakumar, brought its own stability.

More recently, during my fracture treatment with Dr. Vijayakrishnan, I noticed how the same clinic could feel entirely different across visits. The first time, it was chaotic, almost dissonant. The second time, it felt calmer, more aligned.

It made me wonder if the waiting room is not just shaped by the doctor or the space, but also by the inner state we bring into it.

Perhaps that is what I have been learning, slowly, across years and places.

That a waiting room is never just a place where time passes.

It is a space where the body waits, the mind observes, and something within quietly measures the distance between dis-ease and ease.

Credit: Polished by AI