Hathiwale Hospital

We’ve been here at Godbole Mala for a good while now. Hathiwale Hospital isn’t a fancy place with glass walls or anything, just a solid building where we get to work every morning. Most days start the same way. Someone arrives early to unlock the front gate and the hallway smells like floor cleaner for a bit before the patients start showing up. Godbole Mala is a busy enough spot, so there’s always some noise from the street coming in through the windows. It’s mostly locals who walk over from nearby. Sometimes the waiting room gets a bit crowded in the afternoons when it’s hot outside and everyone wants to sit under the fans. We have these old wooden chairs that have been here forever. They aren't the most comfortable things but they do the job. The staff knows most of the faces that come through the door by now. We spend a lot of time filing papers and answering the same phone calls about timing. It’s just how it goes here. The light hits the front desk in a certain way around four o’clock, which usually means it's almost time for the evening shift to take over. There’s a tea stall just down the road and the smell of ginger tea sometimes wafts in when the wind is right. It’s a simple setup we have at Hathiwale Hospital, nothing too complicated, just a place in the neighborhood where people come when they aren't feeling right.