I see a lot of people today.

I don’t see them every day…

but what I see in them

hasn’t changed in a long time.

I see a lone mother downstairs,

constantly checking her phone

throughout the day.

Maybe she lives far away

from her dear ones.

Her saddened face

reveals the number of unanswered calls.

I see another woman—

busy like a bee,

having tea at 10 a.m.

on her terrace garden,

with a tired smile.

Her kitchen light goes off late,

but comes on earlier than anyone else’s.

Her bougainvillea

holds her quiet exhaustion.

Above her,

there is a boy

with a confused face.

Frightened eyes.

He cries sometimes.

He looks down, outside—

that stillness is neither hope nor escape.

Just like a bird in a cage.

Who tied his wings?

What holds back his flight?

Then there is a woman

in her thirties—

she smiles a lot with everyone,

but cries a lot alone.

Maybe she is letting it out.

She writes a lot—

maybe journaling.

She eats a lot—

maybe to comfort herself.

But she never sleeps much.

A night-owl kind of life.

There is an elderly couple too—

they walk together,

eat together,

even sing and dance together.

How deeply they must love.

I realised it

the day they fought—

not with each other,

but together,

against the world.

They always bring a smile to me.

There is also a family

that stitches

every single day.

Daughter designs,

son brings the fabric,

mother and daughter cut it,

father stitches it.

That is Rooh Designs.

Just like the name—

their soul lives in every piece.

There is a couple

who fights every second.

I wonder every second

why they are still together.

They are in their forties,

their children are scared,

silent.

I can’t call that place a home.

And then—

a young man above them.

I have never seen a greater pet lover.

That dog is his life—

and vice versa.

No one visits him.

I have never even seen him

on his phone.

He works from home.

His dog is his home.

How long they’ve been together,

I don’t know.

But the way that dog looks at him—

feels more human

than most humans.

Seasons change.

The sun rises and sets.

But the moods of these people

remain the same.

I have seen them all

through my window.

My window…

a hospital window.

–Dr Amritha SS