Voices in the Waiting Room

Five doctors. One hospital. A cacophony orchestrated by forced silence, ruptured memories and the quiet fight to belong. When Dr Silva receives a bangle, it threatens to unravel the life she has so carefully constructed. Around her, four colleagues carry burdens of their own. There is Dr Ankit, who fled a broken system in India and is now struggling to find a sense of home in a country that sees him as a stranger; Dr Pooja, poised on the outside but aching beneath the surface; Dr Shashi, brilliant yet adrift in the ubiquity of human connections; and Dr Jindal, a pillar of the diaspora, undone by a grief too vast to articulate. In the antiseptic corridors of a hospital in the United States, these voices intersect and intertwine, bound together by the universal need to be seen, understood and remembered. Voices in the Waiting Room is a powerful, multi-perspective debut by Mayank Gupta about identity, displacement and the fragile bonds that tether us to one another. As each voice rises, falters and finally finds its place, Gupta crafts a chorus that is both intimate and resonant.