At a recent party, the conversation veered rapidly from brandy and mulled wine to beauty and appearances. Amidst the general cheerful banter, a small group of people were discussing children with severe disabilities, especially the toll it takes on the parents. One guest happened to ask – ‘if parents had prior knowledge about a child’s mental disorder ‘before it is born’, then wouldn’t it be better to simply abort the pregnancy rather than face a lifetime of suffering?’

My first instinct was: If abortions based on children’s disability were to become common, then we tend to become very intolerant as a society.

It is estimated that 6 to 10% of children in India are born disabled. The statistics are only expected to rise.

Take a look at the statistics on this UK website.

‘1 in 4 people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year’

‘About 10% of children have a mental health problem at any one time’

If we knew ahead of time, would we simply axe a quarter of the population, or perhaps one tenth of all children?

The above argument is, however, idealistic.

We live in a world where anything less than ‘perfect’ faces some form of social rejection (forget the fact that perfection itself is over-rated and I am yet to come across a ‘perfect’ looking person – who has not had a nose-job or boob-job, that is!). That being the case, children who have severe mental disabilities might just be far more vulnerable than others, with mental illness often being regarded as taboo.

Brace yourself and click this link to get a idea of the wide range of disabilities. They range from physical to mental, and from mild to very severe. They could be very insignificant disabilities, whereas some could greatly hinder a normal life for an innocent child!

As Indians, I believe disability is a STIGMA. This link clearly impacts our thought process.
As I see it, the aspects that most influence the decision of abortion are:

1) Social stigma: Ridicule and Rejection.

As I remember it, about two to three decades ago, there was not much awareness of ‘special needs’. Take a simple example – A child wearing thick glasses or a crippled by polio child were often mercilessly teased as ‘blind’ or ‘lame’.

It gets worse as the disability is more severe. Take a child who suffers, say from ADHD. Due to sheer ignorance, the most likely reaction at school would be conferring the label ‘hyperactive’ or ‘wild’ child. Or take the case of an autistic child. The common man is quite likely to reject the child from social circles by branding him or her ‘mentally retarded’. Imagine the enormous social disadvantage.

A lot of research has gone into the spectrum of disabilities and special needs. Unfortunately though, awareness at a common level, is still not adequate. Therefore, a child with severe mental disability is likely to have a really hard time.

Is it kind to allow the child face the ‘big, bad world’?

2)Responsibility or Burden on personal resources.

We don’t quite have the concept of social protection or support in India. Unlike countries such the UK, where the state provides tremendous amount of support (carers, financial arrangements, free special needs schools, etc.) In India, health/education and social care needs are entirely the responsibility of parents and immediate family. The red flag here is: When will the primary (and perhaps, sole!) carer snap? There is a very delicate line differentiating ‘responsibility’ from ‘burden’. After all, carers are human too.

3) The great Karmic circle Guilt!

While abortion is often considered a crime, we often add the Karmic dimension to it, and make it a ‘sinful act’.

Apparently, abortion is legal in UK if the child is ‘that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped’.

Abortion is legal in India too, under certain specific medical circumstances. However, the concept of ‘sin’ attached to abortion results in the feeling of guilt.

Now, the big question:

What is cruel and what is kind? Is aborting a severely disabled child cruel and heartless? Or is it simply an act of kindness to rescue a child from a life of hardship?

What do you think?

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Disclaimer: The opinions mentioned below are extremely shallow, arrogant and MINE ALONE. They do not reflect the opinion of any moderator or author (except me). The following is strictly a coarse rant and not for the faint hearted or egoists (or arts students – who usually have both traits). _______________________________________

Arts students are insightful revolutionaries, with delightfully radical ideas that will change the world.

Such is their delusion.

You know who piss me off (besides everybody)? Arts students. Especially, the literature pursuing types. I hate arts. Not the typical arts-is-for-inferior-minds hate. I hate arts because of the new breed of smug-bastards that infest it. Especially, those literature pursuing types. Priorly, arts students were looked down upon, because it required low grades and even lower intellect (which is completely true) which is completely wrong on humanitarian grounds. But now they deserve it. Every bit of it. Especially, the literature pursuing types.

(For the sake of this article ‘arts students’ means literature pursuing types)

All college freshmen are annoying, by default. It’s the dangerous blend of school-graduating conceit and pride of admission in college that makes them feel supreme. Their utter ignorance of reality and heart full of unrealistic dreams makes them act like pompous primates. That’s just the regular variety.

Arts student are of an extraordinary variety of imbeciles who suffer from acute narcissism while their souls starves for respect and acknowledgement – which no one gives them. They adopt a radically hilarious personality to look sophisticated and speak excessively proper English with irksome eloquence – as if they were the love child of Shakespeare and Jane Austen, conceived with poor judgment on prom night.

These aspiring laureates, in college, delve into their curriculum with animated gusto and pretentiously indulge in all things artsy. Their journey of lifelong snobbery begins with hating contemporary writers while secretly enjoying chick lit (literature for dimwits). Then, they suddenly start reading books of foreign writers who aren’t even famous in their own country and write verbose garbage; later quote their ambiguous lines on Facebook to seem well read. This self-glorification continues with listening to needlessly sad English songs and non-conformance to mainstream music, which also extends to movies. Their movie preference changes with shunning all mainstream cinema due to their sudden fondness for foreign movies which aren’t in English. By then, some foreign language has tickled their fancy, like French or German which becomes their new passion and only words expressed in that language truly touches their heart. “Bonjour!” F**k off.

It’s all about overwhelming feelings and profound words with these severe type of know-it-all’s. That’s why men who pursue arts are tagged massive pussies. These ‘artsholes’ pretend to have elusive knowledge about EVERYTHING, while practically knowing nothing. With their constant practice of dissecting perfectly intelligible literature into vague spiels, they are trained to create flowery theories which can never be practically applied. They are masters of inconclusive bullshit. Five minutes in their company and you will face a life altering question: murder or suicide?

Want proof? Try this test.

I cleverly call it the ‘Lit Must Test’! LOL! Get it? Literature Mus… yeah, so, go to Facebook. Seek out and add a literature student. Regardless of gender, you will find them all cocky. Upon addition to their virtual life, jump to an evaluation process commonly called Facebook stalking. Go through their wall. I assure you, you will find something like this:

“Whatever we may do or attempt, despite the embrace and transports of love, the hunger of the lips, we are always alone. I have dragged you out into the night in the vain hope of a moment’s escape from the horrible solitude which overpowers me. But what is the use! I speak and you answer me, and still each of us is alone; side by side but alone.” – Guy de Maupassant

What just raped your brain is an actual post by an actual literature student being actually annoying on my profile. I’m actually pissed off and need some meditation.

(5 hrs later)

You will never find ONE arts student who doesn’t wish to write a book or doesn’t claim to hold an opinion directly opposite to popular belief on ANY topic. Their unanimously clichéd dreams and long-winded whining about arbitrary thoughts has always irated my inner Hulk and I wish Hitler was still alive and we were friends.

Arts students are so self-important they can’t even stand each other. That’s why pages like ‘Literature Students Who Hate Literature Students’ exist on Facebook with no Science or Commerce variation of the same. Why do arts students need to rub their academic pursuits in the face of EVERYBODY to such wannabe extents where they say “excuse me” to auto drivers and “thank you” to street vendors, which is nowhere close to polite and looks plain weird. I don’t think engineering students ever sit in autos and start explaining the motor mechanism to the driver. Being a commerce student, I never went to a street vendor and asked him if he maintains proper books of accounts. Then, WHY, WHY MUST ARTS STUDENTS BE SUCH PROUD NINCOMPOOPS!?

This elite group of idiots who demand your respect for making negligible contributions to society, and wish to cover up their real-world ineptitude with grandiloquence should be treated with the contempt they deserve. If your child is headed towards arts, you are failing as a parent. Like this girls parents (must watch).

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In what seemed to be a re-enactment of the origins of the Slut Walk, Andhra Pradesh top cop Dinesh Reddy recently made a statement that ‘women who wear fashionable clothes provoke men, leading to increase in rape cases’. He indicated that modern and fashionable women are more prone to rape, BECAUSE of their inappropriate attire. While many people were outraged, many others have applauded him on his courage!

I lived in India for most of my life, and I can tell you for a fact, that EVEN IF YOU ARE COVERED FROM HEAD-TO-TOE you are still very much at the risk of being sexually abused.

For starters, how easy or difficult do you think it is for a woman to travel in a crowded bus without being touched inappropriately by a fellow passenger? A young child, a teenager, a mother of two kids – nobody is spared. As long as one is a woman, she is likely to be molested at some point in time. Do you know how many middle-class woman living in Mumbai carry a sharp safety pin while travelling on a crowded local train? I was advised of this ‘technique’ when I lived in Mumbai for a couple of months.

The groping, pinching and leching that happens in our Indian roads and public transport is beyond a civilised person’s imagination. To blame that sort of lecherous behaviour on the clothes of the victim sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?

A potential rapist sees his victim as an object and nothing else. There are no statistics to prove that a woman wearing a modern dress is more likely to get raped as compared to a woman who is conservatively dressed.

This article talks about molestation statistics in our Capital city, New Delhi. At least one woman is molested EVERY DAY.

Are we really so naive as to believe that all those women who were molested or raped were dressed ‘inappropriately’ or ‘fashionably’?

How about our villages? Those poor women are not dressed ‘fashionably’, and yet they suffer the humiliation and trauma of rape. (Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunan_Poshpora_incident)

For a country that claims to treat women as ‘goddesses’, statistics surprisingly indicate an increasing amount of crime against women.

Do read this shocking extract – http://www.thp.org/reports/indiawom.htm

‘In recent years, there has been an alarming rise in atrocities against women in India. Every 26 minutes a woman is molested. Every 34 minutes a rape takes place. Every 42 minutes a sexual harassment incident occurs. Every 43 minutes a woman is kidnapped. And every 93 minutes a woman is burnt to death over dowry.

One-quarter of the reported rapes involve girls under the age of 16 but the vast majority are never reported. Although the penalty is severe, convictions are rare.’

Let’s get to the ROOT of the problem.

This interesting link describing the various causes of rape. Every single reason for rape (lust/show of power/etc.) has entirely to do with the mindset of the rapist, and NOT the outfit of the victim.

The problem is not that girls are getting influenced by the West and/or are wearing fashionable clothes, thereby ‘provoking’ men. Rape happens IRRESPECTIVE of the victim’s outfit and NOT BECAUSE of it.

If we take a step backward and analyse the situation, we find that our society is plagued by a strong ‘rape culture’.

Wiki defines this rape culture as:

‘a culture in which rape and sexual violence against women are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media condone, normalize, excuse, or tolerate sexual violence against women.  Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification and rape apologism’.

As a society, we still tend to BLAME THE VICTIM. We believe that the victim is responsible, either directly or indirectly.

That way, we not only transfer the burden of rape on the woman, but also seek to excuse the rapist for his barbaric behaviour.

Statistics have not been able to prove the link between the victim’s outfits and incidence of rape. Please read an extract from this link ‘Through a Rapist’s Eyes’. Though this is applicable to the US, the underlying issue is very relevant to India too:

‘There is no data to suggest that a potential victim is at greater risk because of how she is dressed. Remember, 70-80% of assailants are known to their victim, so tactics of stranger rapists aren’t needed.’

More statistics only support the above statements by revealing that around two thirds of rapes are committed by known persons rather than strangers.

Therefore, the point is – Rape is PREMEDITATED. To claim that a girl wore fashionable clothes, and thereby provoked a rapist INVITING rape is baseless.

And for those who really believe that covering ones’ self from head-to-toe protects you from rape, please do read this wonderful article. Rape happens even with women who are completely covered behind a veil.

To be fair, I do understand that wearing revealing clothes might attract more attention in a country that is sexually repressed. But does that justify rape? NO. Rape is crime and you cannot simply BLAME the victim with the flimsy excuse that ‘she was wearing fashionable clothes’!

I think this comment on Yahoo beautifully sums it up:

‘A rapist has a totally different mindset. It’s much more sinister, because he is actually serious about his plans. And to a real rapist, the outfit probably doesn’t matter much at all’.

The need of the hour is not guidelines on Indian women’s Dress Code, but concerted efforts to get out of this gross rape culture. There is no such thing as a ‘right to rape’!! The quicker we realise it, the better for us to evolve into a truly civilised society!

(The above post is entirely the opinion of the author. Readers are most welcome to agree or disagree, but not indulge in personal assaults on either the author or the magazine).

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For an entire decade – during the 90’s – being middle class was cool. The middle class had it all… that was necessary. They rarely gave into temptation, and were grateful for food, shelter and clothing. They always had just about enough for essentials and never enough for luxuries. But that was fine – at least, they weren’t poor. Any financial shortcoming could be shrugged off with one smug line: “Hum middle class walay hain…” (we are the middle class). It wasn’t embarrassing to admit, because the middle class defined more than just the working section of the society. They symbolized morals, principles and upheld our cultural values more than any other section of the society. It was a thing of pride.

You could tell the middle class, right away: a couple with two children, a rented apartment and a two wheeler. That is, of course, the stereotypical picture. They had just enough money to their name to live respectably. They were humble people who celebrated and enjoyed the littlest things. Since they were deprived of certain luxuries, they valued and appreciated whatever material possessions they had.

 Unlike the poor, the middle class had a fighting chance for a better future – a hope – but progress of ambitions was slow. In the early 00’s, all that changed. Banks started sounding suspiciously friendly about giving money. 
Want your child to go abroad to get a whatever-the-hell-as-long-as-it’s-abroad degree? Banks had your back. 
Want that car you always dreamed of? They’re there. 
New home? Done. 
They were offering some no-questions-asked money with an “it’s okay if you never return it” tone. It was rumored Satan had joined RBI’s board of directors. And people gladly shook hands with the devil. Lakhs were offered with a smile and all you had to do was mortgage whatever little property you had. A little mortgage never hurt anybody, right?

On the other hand, globalization brought in foreign companies, and that meant, OMG! MNC jobs for the working class. Emerging call centers gave the youth a chance to screw up their education for meager pay for tireless toiling. Everyone was happy as there was money in the air.

The middle class was suddenly empowered and luxuries turned to necessities. They just couldn’t do without a car anymore. The dream bungalow was realized in the form of lavish condos, their children HAD TO get into IIT or die (of social embarrassment) and they weren’t really comfortable in any other fabric than the one with the big brand stamps – which they bought from the new mall. Excess was the new minimal and none of it valued or appreciated. The whole social stratum was basking in its new found wealth and stature. No one said “we’re middle class” anymore, and frankly, it would make them look bad. So, everyone pretended the 90’s never happened.

Call the middle class middle class, today, and all offence is taken. They just might smack you with the Rolex sporting pimp-hand, then, run you over with their new Honda hatchback.

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To call 2011 eventful would be an understatement. It was a year jam-packed with waves of political uprisings, national disasters, economic roller-coasters, the downfall of dictators, achievements in innovation, beginnings and ends of conflicts, and Kolaveri Di (both the song and its definition). For us, here at The NRI, it’s been a year of tremendous growth, all thanks to a talented and eclectic team of writers and you, our loyal, enthusiastic and interactive readers. So, as we wrap up one heck of a year, we’d like to share with you the top 10 most read articles published on The NRI in 2011.

And as a special treat after this top 10 list, the esteemed owner and editor of The NRI, Amar Sodhi, has emerged from the dark shadows of tirelessly keeping the website alive and kicking to give us his pick of articles from the year that caught his fancy (Think of me as his envoy here).

The top ten most read articles published on The NRI in 2011, in ascending order, are:

(10) Of The People But NOT For The People

What do you do when you find a treasure trove of gigantic proportions that had been kept locked away in a temple vault for centuries? You lock it back up and deploy security, using public funds, instead of putting it towards public benefit. Anirban Banerjee opens a pandora’s box in his discussion of the dicey links between religion, the government, and the poor.

(9) Film Review: Delhi Belly

One of two films that drew major interest this year, reflected in the the large numbers of hits we got for their reviews. Here, Jaspreet Pandohar raves about the film, specifically mentioning its “platefuls of defecation, fornication and masturbation jokes, and plenty of on screen smoking, swearing and sexual innuendo” that push the boundaries of Indian comedy and at the same time offend many conservative Indians.

(8) Sex, Prostitution And A Lie Called Love

A vivid exploration of the dark and trapped lives of the sex workers along G.B. Road, Delhi’s red light district. In most cases, the women work there not out of choice but because they are pawns in a large, dangerous business of sex. Anukriti Sharma talks about the concept of love that eludes many of these women because of the circumstances of the work they are forced into.

(7) Very Very Kolaveri!

If you haven’t yet heard ‘Why this Kolaveri Di’, you must be living under a rock. Love it, hate it or just don’t care, the phenomenal overnight viral success of the song triggered debates on what “good” music actually is. However, as Pallavi Subramanium says, “while perfection is great, being ‘real’ is far more attractive.”

(6) Shape Of Things To Come

Modern media and popular culture is spreading incredibly skewed ideals for what a woman’s body should be like. Sandeep Sandhu traces the shift over time of body ideals from the robust, curvy woman to the skinny, size zero image that has proliferated all around us today.

(5) Music Review: Delhi Belly

I guess it’s safe to assume Delhi Belly was one of the most talked about and most searched topics this year. With Jaspreet’s film review and my music review of the same film both making it to this list, it’s clear that our readers reveled in the unapologetic crudeness that the film offered in such abundance. After all, I Hate You (Like I Love You).

(4) Film Review: Bodyguard

How ironic that one of our least favorite films of the year is not only the highest grossing Hindi film of 2011 but its review also got one of the highest number of hits. Back then, I had reviewed Bodyguard as “an exhausting experience, offering painfully little by way of entertainment, plot or performances.” Well, nothing’s changed.

(3) Too Sexy For Your Love

Gandhi had the “confidence to meet the English Prime minister in his underwear. That man was sexy and he knew it.” Tysonice emphatically dispels the notion that Indian men are not sexy. You heard it from him first.

(2) Films To Watch In 2011

Film writers (such as myself) breathe a big sigh of relief when their predictions for films to look out for in a new year don’t completely collapse into a pile of disappointing, flopped, and ridiculed debris. At least half my list actually turned out to be some of the strongest films of the year and, while I have your attention (shameless plug coming), why not vote for your favorite films here.

(1) The Train Travelers Guide To The Country

And the most read post of 2011 will throw you right into the middle of one of the most quintessentially Indian experiences - a train journey. If you haven’t experienced the “five minutes of hope” or come across the “kindly adjust family,” “the lonely techie,” or the “train traveling wife,” go book your train ticket now. And if you have, then you might want to experience it all again.

Now, as promised, here is our editor’s pick of 10 more articles from 2011 that deserve special mention. (He wants me to specify, however, that the editor’s picks are just additional posts that deserve mention and aren’t meant to discredit the most read posts above. There you have it, diplomatic and impartial as always.)

India Changed My Life – Barnaby Haszard Morris has established a loyal readership (and deservedly so) chronicling his three years living and working in Kerala. As he was leaving India to return to his native New Zealand, Barnaby poignantly reflected on experiences and adventures that changed his life. In another piece titled Welcome To The Real World, Barnaby writes an open letter to the “porn-spoiled wannabe Romeos,” the perpetrators of sexual harassment that he witnessed during his time in India.

Doing The Mallu Shuffle – if you ever wondered about the dancing talents of Mallu men, Tysonice provides the answers. And while you try to imagine a Mallu man dancing, Barnaby talks about what to expect as a white man in Kerala in Saip Shock. Of course, there are also plenty of Indians that strive for whiter skin, as Barnaby explores the misleading business of skin lightening creams in the Indian markets in his piece My Beautiful White Skin.

Heroine – Anisha Jhaveri dissects the world of Hindi film actresses where superstardom and big money doesn’t necessarily mean the roles available for tinseltown’s women are getting any better. Another piece by Anisha, South Asians vs. Stereotypes, asks if our battle with media stereotypes is even worth the fight.

Babadom 101 – If you’ve ever wondered what you need to do to become a baba, Raja Indrajit provides all the answers. Going along similar lines in The Spiritual ‘Sigh’ Baba, Sourav Sengupta takes a strong position against the widespread reverence that many held towards the late Sathya Sai Baba, calling the public mourning of his death a refusal in India to “shed its medieval identity.” Meanwhile, in M.F. Husain And The Test Of A Democracy, I had a chance to start digging at the incredibly complex layers of a democratic society like India grappling with how to remember the loss of one of the greatest artists of modern times. Such explorations of democracy and evolving culture, it seems, will only become a bigger topic of discussion as we roll into 2012.

There you have it – 0ur round up of the most read and most discussed posts of 2011. As we look ahead to 2012, we at The NRI are excited to grow even more and tell more relevant and interesting stories that resonate with the vast community of Indians worldwide.

We have several exciting developments to look forward to in the coming year, including the relaunch of the site. The NRI will be bigger and better in 2012 and we thank you for supporting us and encouraging us to continue moving forward. As we plan for the coming year, tell us in the comments section below what topics or issues you would like us to write about.

Happy New Year!

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We all know that the male child is a prized possession in India. Only the child in question does not know that, at birth. But this state of innocence is very short-lived. Soon he discovers that he has achieved no mean feat just by being born male in India. This awareness is tantamount to a mental block, a learning disability except in rare discerning households.

For starters, one of the earliest assurances that he receives is that as a male child he is eventually heir to the position of the head of the family if not also to most of the family property. In rural India, where there is not much inheritance to pass from one generation to the next, this assurance is still there, that he still gets to be the unquestioned “head” of the family, with a docile (read, servile) wife and a bunch of kids that are there to serve him and for him to bully.

This mindset is still with the Indian male as a full grown adult and he carries it with him to the workplace. More often than I care to mention, I have found male co-workers who find it difficult to acknowledge that at the workplace the household equation of unquestioned male supremacy is not there. Out of the comfort zone, many such men are unpleasantly surprised to find that they have to prove their mettle by demonstrating technical, managerial and other skills. There are of course exceptions, but the vast majority of men who start their careers with the assumption that the red carpet is there waiting for them at the workplace, or that there are women waiting to follow his orders, are in for a rude shock when they don’t find these things. The shock turns to depression and subsequently to aggression when they are saddled with a female boss from whom they have to take instructions. If the lady in question is sensitive to the psychology of such a team-member, she might sometimes take the help of a male co-worker to ease the new entrant into the work situation. If not, then a tussle of power can become quite a futile loss of both time and energy which, needless to say, benefits no one.

The term ‘male ego’ is widely recognized, why has no one heard of ‘female ego’? Probably because socio-culturally there is no sanction in Indian society for a ‘female ego’ even though we are a nation that worships various forms of ‘Shakti’. Tradition and convention taught us to put the woman either on a pedestal and worship or, to look upon her as an object of use, at best a piece of furniture, meant to look beautiful and add value in terms of a possession for her owner, the man.

In the West ever so often, the Indian male is perceived to be a guy who has fun the way he wants to while studying there, or learning the ropes at a new job, but dutifully goes back to India in search of a wife because apart from the fact that he is secretly hoping to marry an innocent virgin, he calculates that she would be easier to control, that he could expect her to perform household duties like a slave and appear like an epitome all virtues.

The fact is that like India, the Indian male is also typecast. India is all about cows, snake charmers, dirty streets. That description of India makes us all cringe. Yet, we all know it’s partly true. Bashing the Indian male smacks of a similar Western mindset. We all want India to break out of the image mould, so also for the Indian male. The Indian female, I must admit, gets the better part of the bargain. She is typecast as the beautiful, submissive, clever, deft woman who is forever under the jackboot of the Indian male.  Casting the Indian male as a mother obsessing, woman beating, lazy and helpless lout pining for a lost feudal world is fashionable. But is it true? Well in my experience, more than partly true at least. Every day I witness the male swagger and the male bragging – both pathetic attempts at denying a new world order where worth is directly proportional to the skill-set and experience being put on the table.  What is more infuriating yet is to also observe how the same clever and deft woman so often plays the “damsel in distress” card, thereby artificially inflating the “male ego” and eventually manipulating it to suit her own purpose. But I guess this is how the game of survival is played. As they say, all’s fair in love and war, and what better virtual war-ground than life itself.

Photo credit: Nathan Put-Fernandez

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Now that we have only about a year to live, considering that everyone is talking about the end of the world by Dec 21st 2012, I would like to thank the humanity out there for proving me right when I had said that the funniest thing about us is that we never think we can be next, even when surrounded by death.

Well, I am not the first one to say this.

Supposedly one virtuous Indian king said this to the Lord of the Death, Yama (no relation to Yamaha), when asked what the funniest thing about a human is .

I would have said penis. But no one asks me anything.

Being an Indian, by the sheer accident of being born to parents born in a particular place and thereby exposing me to a way of life that is unique to it, I am, for all sundry purposes, an animal of my circumstances.

This means that my inherited belief system leads me to assume that my birth, as a creature capable of typing this to you, is something unique. After all, I am supposed to have passed all my karmic exams (almost 8 million of them) to become something that has no memory of its trails and ends up living a life that is only beneficial to its own kind.

Not a great degree certificate, if you ask me.

I mean even the redeeming nature that we claim for ourselves, reasoning, only goes as far as to understand the self centeredness of ourselves and then to try to rectify it. Thereby making us the problem and its supposed solution.

Anyhow.

For the past ten years or so, after the coming and going of another end of the world prediction, which went by the name Y2K, Dec 21st 2012 is now our new deadline.

Personally I like goals.

It gives a purpose to this otherwise meaningless existence. So to know that there is a looming date takes me back to my school days, when the date on which the last final exams was held, brings the end of the world as I knew it then.

A vacation. And then back again to do the whole thing all over again.

Damn. That sounds almost like reincarnation.

Now, being the optimistic kind, I am not interested in what is going to happen. I mean, if we are all going to die, then there’s no point to this discussion, is there? Tell me something new that we already didn’t know.

No.

What I am interested in is what we are going to do if we come out of the rubble and ashes and pinch ourselves to find, much to our dismay, that we are still alive.

I believe the feeling would be a lot like how I felt as a kid, when the plane I was supposed to board taking me to my parents, had left because I was late in reaching the airport after the exams due to the fog on the Nilgiris road.

Now you get to spend the vacation in a relative’s place. Yipee!

So there you stand, facing a world that is all but extinguished. And the duty of rebuilding it, you feel, falls on your ash covered shoulders.

Personally I don’t believe that there is any mandate out there making us the keeper and protector of the earth. In fact I feel that distinction should go to earthworms but a whole lot of by now dead people who lived by the words of more dead people would disagree with me and I go by the principle of never pissing off dead people. They are more dangerous than the ones that are alive.

So you stand there. Perhaps, watching more of us emerging from the rubble like cockroaches.

You will of course collect yourself together. You will find among you a leader. Hopefully, a person who doesn’t want to be one. You will then try to survive.

Being a self glorified version of a virus, you will thrive.

You will multiply.

Earth, like a cancer patient, who had just received chemotherapy, would suffer remission in the near future.

Hopefully someone among you will try to learn and record your history. You will try to learn from your past. I doubt this, but I am an optimist.

You are more likely to just focus on surviving. You are going to give a rat’s arse if you are killing the last rat in the world to feed your children. That’s how we are built.

So saving earth is not going to be your priority. What will motivate you is what you can get out of it. This is what motivates every living thing on this planet so you are in the most esteemed company. Unless you belong to the irritating bunch who believes in a more grandiose version of yourself, you are pretty much humbled and alive. Moreover there’s hope for you.

So here’s my proposal.

Rejuvenating the earth is to your advantage. Shelter, food, protection and everything that can sustain your life can be got either from a mall or a forest. Now that there are no malls, forests are your next best option.

And you, my dear, is the best form of a fertilizer; in skin.

So.

Here is my idea. I have been shouting this from the rooftops but nobody listens. Which is not surprising. Considering that almost all rooftops are now more than 20 stories high, I doubt anyone even heard me.

The idea.

When you die, instruct others for you to be buried with a seed in your heart.

Assign an area where these burials take place.

Make a forest.

Forget what anyone else has ever told you. This is your meaning. You are meant to rejuvenate. To create. to protect and sustain.

You are basically worm food.

But it sounded better when it was said the other way, didn’t it?

As for me.

I have instructed for a banyan tree seed to be shoved deep within the recess of my still heart.

I love the grandiose nature of that one.

What? I am only human.

Photo credit: Catarina Carneiro de Sousa

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I had fun writing about my first experience in an Indian hospital. The mundu-clad old doctor effectively assaulting me, first with words then with a thick needle (though he got the job done); the bright stares and fascinated questions of the orderlies as they injected my pale skin with anti-tetanus serum. I found it all highly amusing even as it was happening. But why?  I had a serious wound which was treated appropriately. Where’s the hilarity in that?

There are a lot of reasons. The unfamiliar environment, the staff’s attitudes and the coarse, anaesthetic-free treatment each added a layer of absurdity to proceedings which were not that funny in and of themselves. It was all rough edges and imprecise approximations, all jugaad, not a job well done but a job done well enough.

This persistent quality of inexactness (articulated very well here by Paris-based NRI Noopur Tiwari) is one of the most charming things about the India. It puts a smile on your face whenever the vegetable vendor throws chillies into your bag in lieu of coinage, or when the man you’ve just met on the train calls you ‘brother’ and means it. But does it have a place where lives are often at stake? How much approximation can we accept in India’s hospitals?

Between the facilities available and the delivery of care, I witnessed a range of combinations in quality at Indian hospitals. None was ideal.

The general ward at Thiruvananthapuram’s Medical College was a hall of thin curtains and tall, unglazed windows; it held up to seventy or eighty patients at a time, each seemingly suffering from a different condition. Attention from nurses – let alone doctors – was extremely sporadic. Given the almost total absence of care and technological resources, the chief order of business for most patients on the ward was to get out, either to the comparative safety of their homes or on to the next world.

At the other end of the scale were the shiny floors and plasma screens in the lobby of Credence Hospital, a women’s facility also in Thiruvananthapuram. The service at reception was swift and impressive, and wait times were less than an hour. It was easy to be impressed with what felt like a Western-standard facility just kilometres away from the dreaded hall of the damned at Medical College. Unfortunately, the delivery of care let it down: the consulting doctor treated my friend with icy detachment, as if the letters before and after her name gave her the right to look down on her patients. At Credence Hospital, the Indian pride in material gains was not paired – as it usually is – with an equivalent pride in treating the guest as one’s temporary God. Indeed, the pride extended no further than the expensive, comfortable chairs occupied by self-important physicians.

Somewhere in the middle is Varkala’s Sree Narayana Mission Hospital. I went there in early 2011 with an appropriately inexact complaint: I felt funny. For the previous two weeks I’d suffered increased tiredness, a slight headache and dizziness and had a few problems with memory. I put off seeing the doctor for as long as I could, partly because of my previous experiences in Indian hospitals and partly because of my own stubbornness. Thinking I might have an inner ear problem, I got an appointment to see Dr Sureshkumar, an ENT surgeon.

Sree Narayana Mission Hospital’s buildings are no more impressive than those of Medical College, and certainly a world away from Credence. Each is a relic of the past century, with only a few computers and some plastic seats to modernise decades-old, functional, concrete rooms. My consultation with Dr Sureshkumar was held in one such room, with the requisite young nurses hovering at the sides. Dr Sureshkumar picked up his pen as I sat down (he had no computer). I braced myself for brusque, courtroom-style questioning.

However, this doctor was not like the others. I couldn’t call him warm, or friendly, but he looked me in the eye and proceeded with straightforward questions to try and sort out what was wrong. It took a few minutes to go through symptoms, recent activities and medical history, after which he examined my ears and checked my blood pressure. Finding nothing of note, he ordered blood tests and prescribed vitamins and a tablet to improve blood flow to the brain. Finally, he requested that I return after five days to update him on progress. I thanked him, had blood taken in the laboratory (which had vials of blood in a heap on its wooden bench, alongside a pile of unused syringes) and went home. The whole process took about an hour, including wait times.

At my follow-up visit, I collected my blood results from the smiling nurses in the lab. Dr Sureshkumar looked over them and, noting no new symptoms, advised that we watch and wait for a further five days. I didn’t keep the next appointment as I felt I was getting better, but the haze descended once more a week after that and I returned to Mission Hospital. He quietly and seriously scolded me for not following up with him, then ordered a CT brain scan – on which, again, there were no abnormalities. He restated the lack of anything unusual on all my tests and examinations and suggested we follow up again in another four days, at which we could consider referral to a neurologist (who only visited on Mondays). I started feeling better within three and missed that follow-up, too; a week later, I had recovered and was getting on with my life as normal.

There was no cause for laughter throughout all of this. In fact, if there was any weak link in the chain in terms of looking out for my health, it was me and my poor appointment-keeping. Dr Sureshkumar went about his work with clear-headed efficiency and genuine care. I noticed that nobody left his office frowning, or nervous, or confused; all, from wide-eyed children to stooping aunties, strode away with relative purpose to the next station of care. The nurses, meanwhile, smiled and assisted wherever necessary, and escorted patients to where they needed to be next (this seems to be a surprisingly uncommon practice in hospitals everywhere, not just in India).

My positive experience at Mission Hospital got me thinking. If Dr Sureshkumar can perform so well, and with such uncluttered directness, why can’t all medical practitioners do the same?

In his book ‘Better: A Surgeon’s Notes On Performance’, the widely read and respected American surgeon Atul Gawande wrote about the lack of coherence in rural Maharashtra hospitals. He tells remarkable stories of doctors fighting the heavy odds against them – massive patient numbers, limited space, lack of available medicines and underqualified colleagues – and successfully treating a multitude of difficult cases. Knowing full well the impossibility in such remote areas of implementing a revolution in either medical technology or knowhow, Gawande demands the government’s intervention on diligence:

New laboratory science is not the key to saving lives. The infant science of improving performance – of implementing our existing know-how – is. Nowhere, though, have governments recognised this. A surgeon in much of the world therefore stands on his own, with little more than a pen, his fine fingers, and his wits, to cope with a system that barely works and an ever-growing sea of patients.

The medical community in India has mostly resigned itself to current conditions. All the surgical residents I met hoped to go into the cash-only private sector (where patients with the means increasingly seek care, given the failure of the public system) or abroad when they finished their training – as I think I would, in their shoes. Many attending surgeons were plotting their escape, too. Meanwhile, all live with compromises in the care they give that they cannot bear to tolerate.

(from Atul Gawande’s ‘Better: A Surgeon’s Notes On Performance’, pp 242-243, Metropolitan Books, 2007)

Just as they are on Indian roads, the margins in Indian hospitals are narrow and roughly approximated. Medical outcomes, from delivering a child to cancer treatment, have so many variables weighing upon them that it is often impossible to predict where a given patient will end up. However, the variables that can be controlled should be identified and carefully managed, to whatever extent possible.

In too many cases, this is not what happens. There are hundreds of stories online of medical professionals in India failing to perform adequately, such as this American couple’s attempts to be treated for food poisoning and fever, or this article about widespread recycling of dirty syringes. The bottom line is, I got lucky with Dr Sureshkumar and his Mission Hospital colleagues. Even though my malaise petered out seemingly of its own accord, he demonstrated the value of methodical, thought-out care; how one man, employing a combination of understanding and diligence, can perform at his best.

As Gawande often says in his writing, the idea of doing the basics right is an old one. It’s so old, in fact, that many people in important positions cast it aside, believing it irrelevant, especially when newer technologies are doing so much to improve and lengthen our lives. The basics, of course, remain the foundation for everything else we do, and to forfeit quality and diligence in a field like medicine is to forfeit lives.

There are no doubt thousands upon thousands of medical professionals in India who perform to the same standard as Dr Sureshkumar does. They need to be rewarded, and those who fail to follow their example need to be brought up to the same level. This will be an enormous task if the Indian medical community is as resigned to current conditions as Gawande says. But, unlike a cancer patient’s prognosis, it is a possibility that need not be approximated.

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