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Sleeping at JJ Hospital

How do I know so much about JJ Hospital you ask? I had to sleep there.

Had is a hard word, but true. This trip to India has been quite draining, especially on the wallet. After hiring a crew to do my documentary, I was left with precious little to spend. So, post-shoot, I was on a very limited budget. As a result, I was offered an alternative to the astronomical accommodation prices I was paying on my first few nights back from Gujarat.

Healthy, the groom, one of the subjects of my documentary, offered me the use of his room in the resident doctors’ quarters. He no longer had a use for it, because he was living with Nirzari, my friend and his new wife. He spent eleven years living in that room.

So I, thinking I’d already seen squalor in India, in the form of a house in Yari Road, accepted his offer. Mind you, the house I had seen was just messy, but flooded. The ubiquitous odour of cow dung merged with tobacco and weed smoke, turning the walls of the house a heady yellow. Every time you woke up, you stank of weed and cow dung.

The residents were two siblings, on in her early twenties and one in his late teens. Their parents worked in England and came to Mumbai only occasionally. So, they made hay while the sun shone. Clayton, the seventeen year old, raced around the streets of Yari Road on motorbikes with his friends til 7 in the morning. He would generally hit the sack around 8 am and wake up at 8 pm.

Roxane, his elder sister, led a similar nightowl lifestyle. She hung out with her friends til four in the morning and woke up around eleven, for breakfast and one gola.

My next experience in accommodation was in the town of Navsari, Gujurat, where the wedding was to take place. Sheba and I stayed with Esha, a close friend of Nirzari. Esha’s house was an immaculate mansion, built out of marble, granite, brass and carved teak. It was magnificent. She had a swing in the living room the size of a three seater couch. Her entire kitchen was built in granite. Her four floor staircase was decked out in marble and brass.

Following that, I stayed with the Survesh’s cousins in Ahmedabad. Survesh is one of Nirzari’s close friends. His cousins put me up overnight in a simple home they were renting in the suburbs while they renovated their house. It was rustic, but clean and comfortable.

On my return from Ahmedabad, I landed on Ana’s doorstep, who was offering room rental for 800 Rupees a day. One week would have been equivalent to my three week’s rent in Brisbane. Crippling if you ask me. Although she had a clean, comfortable flat in the middle of Juhu, I cast about for alternatives.

This is when Healthy came to the rescue. Or so he thought. He handed me the key on Friday afternoon and I took possession on Sunday evening. Little did I know….

On Sunday evening, I prepared to move to JJ when Ana asked me to stay until 9 pm, when her friends were coming over. She said that she’d help me get a taxi with all my things [backpack, carryon suitcase, camera and daypack] after they left. She then offered to take me for dinner with her boyfriend and his best friend. I accepted, not really realising what I was in for.

Once her friends finally left at 10:30 pm, we headed off to meet up with Kabil, her boyfriend’s sidekick. He was waiting in Bandra, at an “in” restaurant. So, once we’d eaten, on the stroke of midnite, I told him about having to go to JJ. He wouldn’t hear of me taking a cab and offered to drive me.

So, off we went. When we finally arrived at the gates of JJ, I realised why he’d been adamant to see me all the way to the door of my room. The area was dark and lonely. The gate was closed and they only let you in if you spoke Hindi. We found the building in question and walked in.

The floors were grimy and gray. The walls were covered in brown spit and perhaps other unthinkable fluids. The hallways had puddles and cobwebs. The walls and doors seemed about to cave in. He manfully carried my backpack on his shoulder up five flights of stairs, while Ana and his friend lugged my carryon up. At the door of the room, we attempted to open the door, but to no avail. Somebody was in there. After much playing with the lock, the person inside opened the door.

He was surprised to see me there. He didn’t expect me til the day after. However, he politely vacated the room. At this juncture, I was so exhausted I just washed myself and tumbled into bed. First, though, I had to take out my own bedding until I figured out where his was. I hoped that when I woke up in the morning, the place would look better. It didn’t.

posted by Red Yoga @ 7:46 AM