Stray Thoughts

The alarm on his mobile phone gently buzzed beside Diwan’s pillow and his arm snaked out from beneath the quilt to kill it before it started ringing. He didn’t want to wake up his brother Mohan who had come home last evening. He quietly got out of the room, quickly poured some cold water on his face, and finished his morning ablutions. He changed into his shorts and singlet put on his sneakers and was running down the narrow mountain path to meet with his friends Kamal and Bhimraj who would be waiting at Kundan’s shop. It was 5.30 am and the skies had just about started to become pale behind the hills to the east. After a few stretches the three boys, or young men, since they had all turned 18, started slowly jogging up the rutted village road. It was turning cold as the weather had started changing after the rains, but the boys started sweating as they pounded the pot-holed tarmac. Every day for the last month these three boys had started their new schedule. Early morning and late eve...

 A few days ago I asked a student of Public Health what was the public health question that bothered him the most and he promptly answered “Why don’t doctors stay in villages?” He knew that India had finally breached the WHO standard of doctor:population ratio of 1:1000 but was concerned about the huge difference in the availability of doctors in cities and in villages. As a diligent student he had looked at the Economic Survey report of 22- 23 that had reported the favourable doctor:population ratio data as well as the earlier survey of 2018-19 that had reported that there were many PHCs without doctors. The Rural Health Survey of 21-22 had also reported that there was a serious lack of doctors and other staff in PHCs and CHCs, he said. Knowing that I had spent several years as a young doctor in the villages of Uttar Pradesh he asked me why I had gone to the village and why I thought doctors were not going there any more. As a young doctor I had initially gone to the villages of U...

I came across an article titled In Charts: The Sorry State of Fundraising at India’s NGOs in The Mint a few days ago. Three graphs highlighting different aspects of NGO funding in recent times, struck me. The first was how NGOs of global origin were receiving more funds than indigenous ones. The second was that the NGOs formed in the recent past were able to raise more funds, compared to those that had been established earlier. The third was that children focussed and community development NGOs received nearly half the amount of grants available, while NGOs working on women’s issues and social justice received about 1.5% of the pie each. I don’t for even once think that addressing chidren’s needs or community development are less deserving issues, but I was certainly surprised if not a little taken aback, that a country which is celebrating its 75th year, still requires non-Governmental resources for such core development issues. Why haven’t these publicly financed efforts delivered? W...

It was now nearly a week that the rains had stopped, and the sun was shining brightly in a perfect blue sky with a few scattered puffs of white clouds. This year the rains had started late but once they had begun had continued steadily for the last two months. It was a welcome change from the last two years when the rains were not only late and sporadic but had come down so hard once or twice as to cause landslips in several places in our village. After debating for some time, I decided it would be safe to charge the solar cooker today, and after loading it with rice and dal, I went back to my reading. I was sitting on our veranda with my back to the sun and was deeply engrossed in an article on the work of Claudia Goldin, who had just been awarded the Nobel prize in the Economic Sciences, on my tablet, when I heard the clang of the metal gate, and a voice rang out ‘Uncleji Namaste’ . I looked in the direction and saw two young women or should I say girls coming down the stairs after c...

Today is the World Population Day. Many leaders are going to make many speeches on the importance of population. After all we are the world’s No1 in Population! Given below are a few Population Provocations. Can you pick out the googly? 1.        India’s population growth is the slowest it has been since Independence! Smell the coffee!! 2.        It’s not children but the population of oldies that is growing the most rapidly in India! We need old age care not birth control to solve our population problems, if any. 3.        People from our neighbouring countries are clamouring to come into India while patriotic Indians rarely move out of their home land! 4.        Minority communities have had a rapid decline in their birth rates. To say that they have more children than before may be a lie! 5.        India’s population looks to be growing...

On the 28 th of May the Prime Minister inaugurated the new Parliament House in India to both accolades and criticisms. But the news of the wrestlers’ protests also dominated the media. For a month the elite wrestlers of the country had been demanding in vain action against the chief of the wrestling federation for several acts of sexual harassment including against minors. Even though there are strict laws against such acts, the authorities have been loath to act, as the person concerned is a senior ruling party legislator and seems to enjoy social and political immunity. This is nothing new in a deeply entrenched patriarchy like ours. Complaints of sexual harassment especially of child sex abuse are routinely shushed up by the family, to protect their own family honour, and the victim is often accused of making it all up or misinterpreting an ‘innocent’ gesture of affection. Many times, she is made to feel guilty for providing some form of ‘temptation’. In this case too, the situatio...

It is summer and it seems the world has ascended to the hills. There are cars whizzing on our village road and people looking to buy land. I am worried that land around us will soon be sold and we will be surrounded by cottages and loud city folk with their fast cars. The idyll that we expect in these sylvan surroundings will be lost! But then who am I to object? I too have recently come to stay here even though I have lived in this place and loved it for 35 years now. In the sixty odd years of my life, circumstances, some over which I had little control, have moved me from place to place. I know I was born in R G Kar Hospital of Kolkata, and my father was then posted at Contai and then at Howrah, so I guess I must have stayed there as an infant, and then we moved to Delhi. After five years there we moved back to Kolkata, and I stayed put there for the next 16 years. As an autonomous adult I have stayed in the outskirts of Varanasi, in Nainital district, Almora town, Lucknow, S...

  नहीं! यह POSH या कार्यस्थल पर यौन उत्पीड़न पर एक ब्लॉग नहीं है. लेकिन हाँ, यह पुरुषों के लिए है। वर्षों से जेन्डर   शब्द हमारे रोजमर्रा के शब्दकोश का हिस्सा बन गया है, लेकिन पुरुष अभी भी इसे   अपने रास्ते पर एक   केले के छिलके की तरह देखते हैं। वे उससे बच कर चलते हैं ,   रास्ता बदल लेते हैं । कभी-कभी वे यह भी सोचते हैं कि यह कहीं सांप की तरह अपनी फन न फेला दे । लेकिन वे जो भी करते हैं, वे हमेशा सावधान रहते हैं कि उस पर कदम न रखें। उन्हें एक   अजीब डर है कि अगर वे ऐसा करते हैं, तो वे हमेशा के लिए फिसल जाएंगे! लगभग 25 साल पहले   जब मैंने पहली बार भारत के विभिन्न राज्यों के पुरुष, जो की सब डॉक्टर थे, के   साथ जेन्डर के बारे में चर्चा करना शुरू किया था, तो इस शब्द का क्या मतलब है , इसके बारे में भ्रम था। डॉक्टरो का शरीर के साथ वास्ता रहता है , और उन सभी ने माना कि जेन्डर और   सेक्स एक समान है ।     उनके   लिए जेन्डर में अंतर महिलाओं और पुरुषों के   बीच   सभी अंतर को कह सकते हैं । मूंछ और स्तन से लेकर महिलाए...