The Unfortunate Task of Rating Violence Towards Women

While reading all the long ranging debates on the subject of violence against women, I always have misgivings about brush all violence with a similar stroke. I believe there are many many layers and unless we discuss and debate these, a long term solution is difficult. What made me pen this today, were a couple of stories that my servant has been coming back with in just the last week.

Case 1: A relative of someone in her neighbourhood was visiting, got quite involved in the community by day 2 and offered sweets to everybody around. A while later, the guy left and soon after that it was discovered that a thirteen year old girl and a fourteen year old girl were missing. Someone linked the two events and the crowd pressured the host of the guy. The missing guest was traced only to be revealed that in giving out sweets, he had managed to drug the girls specifically, bundle them into a vehicle and was all set to sell them. By the time the girls were recovered, he had already raped them.

Case 2: A small trader had taken to visiting his employee and got to know the family too. One day the employee's wife went missing. A search through police and networks found that the employer had lured the woman and sold her.

To my mind these are examples of an extraordinary level of evil. There are stories like this emanating regularly from all parts of the country and involve many relations from fathers to brothers to neighbours to husbands. These acts take commodification of women to an all new level when people plot to acquire a woman to trade. It also strips the society of any meaning to terms like trust, confidence, relationships and that just cannot be good.

While the vice of materialism and greed are held responsible for such behaviour, I disagree. Getting a daughter married off as the second, third or seventh wife which was acceptable three-four generations ago was just a few degrees away to my mind. That was about families wanting to reduce the cost of looking after the girl while letting the rich guy use her; this is about making some money to let strangers use her. Today when you hear of a father and a maulvi/ulema plotting together to help an Arab sheikh into a temporary marriage, it is indeed evil of the highest order.

So what is my list of evil violence against women?

Worst of all

Top of the list is this planned, structured luring of women to sell their body. It involves either no consent from the woman or includes consent for a different misrepresented act. To me, it is human nature at its worst. It is not a legitimate means of helping a woman earn her living. It is helping her survive. It basically has no justification.

I would ideally like these people punished the most. Unfortunately, I believe that is not the case. Why else would trafficking be the world’s largest trade? Practically every country is struggling to contain it. India sees large scale trafficking from states like Orissa and Jharkhand but also smaller cases from every other part of the country. But I have yet to see sustained coverage of any particular case that could help me understand how the country is handling it. The level of information available is evident from even the Wikipedia page on the subject (sic) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_India

Second on the list is violence as a right

- upper caste men against lower caste women, bosses against employees, rioters against general public, war victors against conquered residents, army against public and so on.

In most of these, the act is considered a right, a prize, an honour and heaven knows what else, and the society is complicit. As recently as a few generations ago, a feudal lord could call any woman in this fiefdom. All newlywed women were bound to spend the first night with him. For all I know, it may still be a practice in parts of the country. Caste differences don't seem to play a large role when it came or for that matter even today when it comes to sex.

While Chenghiz Khan and his descendants are said to have spread their sperms the widest (with most of Europe including the British Queen having his genes) may seem a long time ago as recently as the Bosnian war and the Gujarat riots, people were claiming rapes would ensure Serb/Hindu genes will spread to the next generation. “Man” has not changed much.

A pronouncement of punishment to rapists that involves enforcing rape of a woman of the perpetrator's family is beyond comprehension. The supposed mirroring of family pain not only reinforces the woman as a man's property theme but also shows the complete disregard for the woman's right to peace and her body. Just last week I attended a North Indian wedding that included a ceremony where the patriarch of the marital family pledged to take care of the honour of the new bride, even if the husband dishonours her. While the concept is per se not “overly” offensive, in many minds, the concept seems to have morphed into "she is now mine to do as I want", and that to me is a problem.

Arguments like a soldier “is entitled” to it, or needs it etc. are specious. The refusal of the Army to open itself to the scrutiny of the civil society of such acts, shows its reluctance to move with times. The colleagues of a soldier who is a rapist need other ways of boosting their morale. The cover-up that the Military Courts of Martial are usually accused of, is not the way.

When we talk of sexual harassment at workplaces, it is often viewed from the “people like us” perspective with images of Demi Moore in the forefront. We need to open our minds to the majority of the working women in the country. They earn below minimum wages, don’t have an appointment letter, and nothing to fall back on neither family nor police. They may be working at a construction site with their husband, or harvesting in a field with friends but the sheer insecurity of their life will make it impossible for them to take a stand.

The third on the list is the opportunistic rapist. This includes the father/brother/uncle at home who finds an opportunity and takes it. It also includes the random stranger who sees the opportunity, much like the guys in the fateful incident in Delhi. The reason I rate it below the other two is that this can be stopped before the act if only the girl or the families of the girl or the perpetrator can take measures before anything happens. In several cases that has been done, but in very many cases, the families are complicit, wishful or ignorant or all.

May be some women are more sensitive to the small signs of the intentions of the man in question and some are not. May be that is what makes the difference between being attacked or not. I have since my youth been out at night with male friends. I did not think I will be attacked and I was not. Was I correct about them or was I lucky? I will go with "I was lucky to find guys as my friends who I knew respect women and they have never betrayed me." So when I hear of stories of girls who met their boyfriends and his friend(s) in a park and got raped, I am unable to decipher whether the girl missed something or the guy was that great an actor. I have had the reverse experience also where I have avoided passes by some neighbours and friends of my parents, only to later find that the guys were later found to do stuff like stalking a girl, getting someone pregnant and abandoning the girl etc.

Maybe the society needs to work on honing such skills in girls. Limiting their freedoms is useless when these acts happen as much at home as outside. The society needs to stop the men from acting up.

An important part of that is the family recognizing such impulses and helping correct them. Visiting a psychologist needs to stop being a dirty word. Teachers need to be allowed to identify such traits and report them. Once upon a time neighbours were allowed to collar a guy found misbehaving. Today's parents will likely beat up the neighbour before letting anybody say anything about/to their child.

Living in the society is a contract that says you will ensure others security in return for yours. That includes stopping of breaches by anybody. It cannot only be the responsibility of the police and the judges. When you let it reach that stage, you are at the mercy of one person who may well be living a century ago. In recent times, judges have pronounced that it is not possible for a upper caste male to rape a lower caste female, it is impossible for a husband to sell a wife, a father will not knowingly marry his daughter for money and so on.....for all of which there are ample examples of the existence of a minority who are carrying out such acts. Police routinely refuse to take complaints of paternal rapes. Marital rapes are not even in the discussion.

How then will we reduce these incidents?

Fourth is the guy who promises something that the girl needs, in exchange for sex, and then does not deliver on the promise. If the girl had any sense she would not attempt to sell her body in exchange for anything in the first place, but even if she is stupid and naive enough to do so, it is a violation of her trust and body. Obviously there are debates on how such acts need to be punished, but letting the guy go free should not be an option if only to publicize such acts. "He kept on raping me for the next three months" does sound ridiculous but the breach of trust and act of fraud are definitely not.

The last and unclassifiable lot are actually guys I feel sorry for. Impossible you say?

There is at least one such case. The Koli guy in the Noida Nithari Case. If he were not employed at the residence of a sex addict, it is unlikely that he would have committed these crimes. His biggest problem was his weak character and poverty. He did not have the moral character to walk out of the job or the money to pay for sex, and ended up committing horrendous crimes. 

Could the society have stopped it? Yes but it required everybody in the society to have done their job....the police to have acted on the first few complaints of missing children, the sewage guys cleaning sewage regularly, the neighbourhood of the children being vigilant, the neighbourhood questioning Pandher’s behaviours, the Pandher family taking action against his addiction...the list goes on. Any report of serial killers worldwide, raises the same set of questions of how can these incidents been prevented? How many victims could have been saved by the right action and what is the role each of us could have played in it?

Should Koli be punished? Absolutely. But I still cannot help thinking, he was in the wrong place and should have had the strength to move out early into his job, and could have avoided a lifetime of misery.

All these are also applicable to men/boys who are abused and there are so many of those. From orphanage administrators to the gang leaders on streets to the priest all have shown their ability to harm young men.

I am all for punishing the perpetrators, but to me stopping the act from happening, is way more important.

My message is not cover the girl and keep her in a room.

When a two year old is raped, keeping her in a room in a burka is not going to help. The guy who thinks a cute naked giggling two year old running from her bath, is sexy, is the problem. He needs treatment.

The guy who sees a young girl that thinks how much he can get for selling her, is a problem.

The guy who thinks any woman is fair game for sex whether a daughter, a sister, a stranger, an employee is a problem.

My message is not cover the girl and keep her in a room...it is check the guy you are allowing around her. Is he respectful of all women? Does he understand the concept of personal space? Does he understand the need for consent?

If the answer is no for any of these, the only options available are: reform him, treat him, report him or isolate him. If every family/neighbourhood did that, our world would be a much safer place.

We really need to weed out these guys before they act out. That is how we build a safe society.

Changing Societies and Rape

As a part of all the heated discussions on rape, one theme has been of harping about the pleasant past where no harm happened and the negative changes in the society that have taken place in the Indian society at the behest of the western thought and untamed women.

It is not a different take, it is the age old take. one which makes women responsible for all that happens to them even though she is restricted in most ways in her options and society abdicating its responsibility of holding men responsible for their actions.

It is risky for any body to be out in the night. Most attacks including murders by strangers happen in the night for both genders. But clothes and timing do not explain the following all of which have existed since time immemorial but is usually covered up
1. rape by relatives/known persons - this actually constitutes 90% of the rapes
2. pedophilia - you cannot truly think that a 2 year old or a 4 year old got raped because she was in a frock or was running naked
3. rape in war - where the sole purpose is - to show it to the men on how their property can be defiled with impunity, alongside looting and burning of houses and shops.

Rape of male children by known persons is sadly still not acknowledged in most places including India and hence very little is done to provide support to such survivors and victims.

The myth of the grand safe centuries is just that in most places including the rural areas. In both West and East, letting the landlord sleep with a servant's wife on the wedding night was a practice. For a king to see a beautiful girl and ask for her to be sent over, was again a practice. Then it may have been considered normal but it was still rape. Acquiescence due to the power difference in the relationship does not make it consensual.

Even today in North India a widow who stays back in the husband's home, is reduced to the family chattel. I heard of it first about 20 years ago from a gynecologist friend in an urban setting, of her patients who undergo various inhuman treatments when they continue to live in their marital homes since they don't have the option of returning to the parental or filial homes and no means of earning enough to bring up their children. In rajasthan, the younger brother "keeps" her . In punjab, at least the unmarried brother, marries her. If these acts were the norm, Sati actually begins to look like a rational option for the widowed woman.

30 years ago, one of my brother's friend from Haryana told him, that when the eldest brother gets married, its like all brothers now have a wife and all have access to her. I still remember my brother's shock even hours later when he was narrating the conversation to us. Khushwant Singh's joke books had i remember a joke in the same vein, where a daughter-in-law asked the mother-in-law to help her identify her husband, and got the reply, in all these years, i don't know who is my husband.

The South is hopefully better. At least i have not heard of such practices there, though there were rumours of a politician, when i was younger, who asked for girls he spotted on the  roads to be sent to him. I have not checked whether he still does so but the thought that he could one day be the CM of Tamil Nadu is not very comfortable.

To hold western thoughts and ideas responsible is a pure head-in-the-sand reaction. India is as bad if not worse. Even apparently educated people tend to look at explanations and research that suits them. It is a rare academic who probably looks at all aspects and a rare reader who reads all the literature to see what makes most sense.

Recently I got into a Facebook spat with a stranger who sent links of research showing that men use aggression to help spread their genes. In actuality, there is also a lot of research that show that rape rarely leads to a healthy happy child that will survive long since the mother is not as keen to take care of the child even if she manages to carry the child to term after the traumatic experience. Research in various animals in fact shows that adultery and cuckolding is the best form of ensuring safe transmission of genes outside of a marriage. The consent of the mother is critical to the health of the child. And adultery and cuckolding are also age old practice. When there is a rule that says - don't practice adultery - you know that it happens often enough in a society.

As much as many people world over yearn for the yester-years when social rules went largely unquestioned, the genie is out of the bottle and cannot be forced back. More and more, people will be held responsible for what comes out of their actions. it is indeed time, they started acknowledging that and acting in consonance with the new society.

Petrol politics of India

I think I may be a minority of one that believes that petrol should be priced high in India. When a few years ago a friend sent a sheet highlighting how petrol is priced in Pakistan, nepal and few other really badly managed economies, i had asked him why he would want to be like them? Since then i have not received such emails. I am not sure he stopped believing it. But this is my argument on why Petrol should be priced high.

India has a population of 1.2 billion or 1200 million. No. Pan card holders 120 million or 10% of population. No of individuals paying taxes 31 million or 2.5% of population.

No. of personal vehicles on road : 2 wheelers 45 million. 4 wheelers 10 million

of the tax payers 10 million are registered as business/professionals who get to expense out their petrol bills ( a 33% discount??)

So if the majority of vehicle owners in this country are saying they are below taxable limit but can afford to run a vehicle, why is a consumption tax in the form of a duty a problem. No body is asking us to travel by a large car or a heavy mobike. No body is stopping us from car pooling. Unlike the income tax where you work hard and pay higher taxes, here you only pay for what you use.

If those of us who believe in luxury of personal vehicles want to use vehicles run on fossil fuels, we should pay for it. Europe discourages personal vehicles by taxing both cars and gas, Singapore taxes vehicle ownership, and i believe they are doing the right thing.

Partisan politics by the politicians is visible in how someone as a minister can run a ministry down to losses, use taxes to fund it and yet today yell and scream against it.

I am assuming that people who know me are more intelligent and articulate. That though they complain of the price hike, they do understand the politics around it. This is my way of checking on the other arguments.

Osama Bin Laden and unwarranted parallels

US spent 10 odd years in the area, going in and out of Pakistan enroute to Afghanistan, looking for the guy in caves, nooks and crannies to find him happily ensconced in a mid sized city, close to a garrison, with their "partners" in War against Terror either complicit or incompetent ( either way, what a partner to have chosen), the same partners they are giving away fighter planes to, while being upset that they could not sell us any.

These are the guys that many i know what India to emulate. Really?? that's the standard you want set?

There are several comparisons people draw that i think are unfair and i pray to god, India does not adopt.

1. Will India every get Dawood EKIA in a similar fashion?
2. Why have we still not executed Ajmal Kasab/Afzal Guru/.....
3. Why don't we go and bomb camps in POK?
4. why don't we.......fill in your own blanks

Such short sighted and poor witted tactics is what India uses in managing its economy. Knee jerk reactions with little impact. Do we really want that in our Defence?

a) US is a bully in a bully's clothes. From assassination of leaders of countries they want to control to carrying out "Economic Hits through Hitmen" to supplying arms to afghans and equivalents in Iraq, all US does is try and get its own way.

So instead of acknowledging what India has been saying all the while they preferred to trust Pakistan until Obama needed to divert attention from his origins and secure his re-election. Much like Bush did after 9/11.

Until 9/11, US thought it was invincible and only then understood bullying has repercussions. It has never been able to secure its borders and its only their luck that Mexico is not exporting terror.

So now that everybody knows a 9/11 could be arranged, I am sure there is a bunch planning a retaliation, which can probably prevented only by luck, (given the nature of terrorist acts).

b) The US could carry out surgical attacks mainly in places that they poke their noses into, get familiar with the landscape and then use their Navy Seals or CIA or what ever. India rarely does the same level of intervention. We have enough of our own problems. I would not vote for spending $ 1 trillion to get "one" guy. The repercussions of such expenditure is there for all to see. Ask those who were dispossessed of their houses a few years ago.

after having given Pakistan 21 billion dollars, it knows pakistan will hardly retaliate as a nation even if its ego had suffered a major blow. That is hardly the case with India and Pakistan. Pakistan will gladly use the excuse of an Indian incursion to vent some steam.

c) The respect for "Due Process" is not something you want to see go away. Trust me. You don't want vigilante justice, not here not anywhere. Hanging someone is a final act. It does not help in anything except boost some egos. It has not even be capable of being a preventive. Not in rape, or murder and least of all for a fanatic. So why bray for blood all the time? The US may have used the Osama killing to send a message to Pakistan on its perfidy, but even they seem to have waited 5-6 years before doing eliminating it. Yet within 3 years of catching a small fry like Kasab, people feel their self respect is hurt. Isn't it funny that it was okay to hang Indira Gandhi's killers in 5 years, Rajiv Gandhi's in 8 years and General Vaidya's killers in 6 years but this guy, we must do it now.

d) That this country does not have a policy on how to handle hostage situations and buckled under a couple of times is of concern and that is what needs to be fixed, not the due process. US has a policy of "no negotiations" in such situations. How come we don't want to emulate that? At the first smell of a civilian hostage, we press the government to buckle. It happened in the Rubaiyya Mufti Kidnapping and then in the IC-814 hijack. Civil Society did not protest against the release of the prisoners. They don't like to sacrifice for the nation.

In more ways than one, i am proud of how India handles things.

Unlike a Palestine-Israel, India created a Bangladesh that has not led to daily animosity and blood shed. We treat pakistan as a recalcitrant younger sibling that actually irritates them more than anything.

Inspite of all the PR disasters on J&K, when Saif Gaddhafi apparently got a survey done, in J&K, over 98% of those on Indian side said they did not want to join Pakistan and over 50% in the Pak Side said they did not want to join Pakistan :)

Nepalese and Bangladeshis see India as a saviour and illegally enter the country to work here.

Sri Lanka also has a decent relationship despite all the IPKF /Tamil tigers disasters.

As a daughter of an Air Force Officer, i can tell you that i know of at least one instance (albeit quite a while ago) where India carried out a covert action against Pakistan, and got away with it. Obviously details were not shared with me, but i knew there was something up, asked what was happening, some broad details were given and i know we got away with it.That my friends is how covert activities should be done.

Our lack of strong willed leaders with a vision is our problem. Knee jerk reactions is all they know. That is what we need to solve. Not the structure of the country.

A tribute to the Noida Police

On February 8, 2011, it will be the 16th Anniversary of my father passing away in a road accident and the day that I began to thank Noida Police and do so off and on in my mind.

My dad on that fateful day, took a bicycle to a post office less than a kilometer from home and was hit by a truck on his way back. All he had on him was the receipt of the letter he had just sent by registered post and the change from the fifty bucks he gave the post office for the same. He was hit close to a doctor's clinic and was taken their immediately. Dr. Chauhan administered what he could and called for an ambulance and the police. By the time Dad reached the hospital he was no more. Stuck with no identification, Cop Extraordinaire R S Singh, actually had the brainwave of using the registration receipt to trace a return address and though about three hours after the accident, did knock on our doors to check if anybody had gone out and not returned. He even showed the sensitivity of first asking to see a picture of the person who was out, before asking me to accompany me to the hospital. Only after I refused to go with him unless he told me what this was all about, did he break the news. I still shudder at the thought that if he had not found us, i would have had to go from morgue to morgue to find my dad.

In these days when the Noida Police is maligned for their bungling the Aarushi Talwar case, i think often of RS Singh and wonder if anybody ever thought of training him regularly on new techniques. If any of them had ever been exposed to what to do at a crime scene? If they were so used to taking "politically correct" calls that they had lost any ability to do a clean job of anything?

Aarushi's family deserve closure that they may never get. I feel for them. I knew her uncle Sameer in our younger days and some of my friends know Nupur well. I do understand what they all are going through. But a part of me is thankful that on one fateful day, Noida Police did do its job well enough for me.

And no, they did not trace the truck that hit my dad, because none of the bystanders managed to catch the license plate. But you know what, I somehow don't care about that. I am just thankful for small mercies.

Three days at AIIMS as a commentary on Indian Healthcare

My servant's 22 year old son slipped on some liquids at his workplace about a year ago and paid scant attention to it. Over time he found his right hand giving him problems. He could not make a fist, lift things and his forearm was wasting away. They pinned hope on a referral to one of my servant's other employers' to a doctor. The reference never came. Then someone in their neighbourhood referred them to a doc and they began to go to him. Several months later she mentioned to me that rupees five thousand down, he has had no relief. Honestly, until she said 5000, i had shown no interest in the case. Now that she had my attention, i called him over to take him to a neighbourhood family physician to assess if the problem required an orthopedic surgeon or a neurologist. He referred us to a neurologist and suggested a MRI.

A trip to oneof the largest private hospitals in Noida was scheduled. The neurologist there agreed that the problem was neurological (brachial plexar injury). Basically the nerves around the shoulder had sustained major strain and had possibly broken. The doctor estimated that just the tests to check whether the nerves are still live would cost over Rs. 10,000 and the surgery if required would run into a couple of lacs. He said may be 3-4 hospitals in NCR were probably equipped to do the tests and the surgery and hence AIIMS is probably our best bet. The boy obviously had no clue where or what AIIMS was. So i bravely said i would take him there for a few days until the a diagnosis and line of treatment is established.

Day -1

Ijust vaguely knew that the biggest part of going to AIIMS is getting a “card” made. A check of the AIIMS website told us that the card counter is opened between 8:30 and to 1 pm. Taking indian population into consideration, i decided we should be there by 7:15 am.

i talked about the impending trip to a friend who said it would be impossible to get into AIIMS with out “patti' or an inside helping hand. So got a reference to a doc there and spoke to her. She was not going to be there the next day but said we should not have a problem. Also said to call if there is any problem.

Day 1

So my driver, the boy and i left at 6:30 one dark january morning. Needless to say we were not the first to reach there. There were three longish lines already in place. Two for a slip to say which speciality to send the patient to (one for men and one for women). The third for those who got their slips earlier but didnot cards yet.

8:15 am. The doors open and there is staff walking around taking their places. The place is now buzzing with energy. The lines are compact with people pressing against each other. There a few hangers-on hoping to break in with out having stood in line for the extra hour but on the whole the discipline is maintained admirably given that there is no one monitoring the line.

I must confess that i have a ADD , OCD and the works at various levels at different points in time. After having walked the perimeter of AIIMS several times since reaching there, i now found myself tired of my ipod and reached the entrance.Having found the information desk being manned,i had this unexplainable urge to check if we were in the right line.

Of course we were not. The woman there said Neurology and neurosurgery has a separate building window, card et al. I went and checked it out after telling the boy tostay on the current line.

8:40 the boy gets his slip saying he needs a orthopedics card. Instead to getting the card, i decide to go to the neuro window. The line there is smaller and his turn comes in reasonably quickly though we reached there after 8:45. the woman at the window looks at the papers we are carrying from the doctors in Noida with askance and then sends us to another window. That guy looks through and asks for details of what the referral etc. After 10mins of getting us to hang around he says the referral is not acceptable because the paper says “ suggested follow up from hospital like AIIMS”. Get a new referral.

So we go back to the general OPD to get a AIIMS card. But they have run out of cards. I say how? The guy at the window says only 200 are issued a day through 6 windows. Helpfully he says, now that you have that slip you can get a Ortho card made any day over the next 12 months. Thank you. We get back to Noida.

Day 2.

We reach AIIMS later today. 8 am instead of 7 15 of the day before. 8:15, doors open and the boy is number 6 in one of the windows. The card require a fee of Rupees 10 which is duly paid and we reach the ortho ward . A guard showed us the room we were to wait in. We were the first there. A guy cleaning the floors said put the card on the Doc's table and wait. The Doc would come sometime between 9:30 and 10:30. We sat down and watched more and more people walkin. One kept close tabs on the cards on the table so nobody gatecrashers.

9:45

the Doctor's assistant arrives. The Doc is on the way, he announces. First follow-up patients will be examined and then new patients. I am shocked. So i tell him, we only want a reference to go to the neurology deptt. Where cards will only be issued until12 noon. He pretends not to hear me. I am agitated. Doc comes and assistant again comes out to call first patient. I again protest politely.He asks for the boy's name and says he will think about it.

The patient inside needs to get weighed or something. The Doc is basically waiting for them to do it. Thankfully the Assistant pitches us. The Doc looks at the papers, checks the boy's hand and quickly writes out the reference. I gloat to the boy that talking a lot helps most of the time.

10:20 we reach the neuro window. In 10 mins we have the card and are sent to a room where junior doctors will first do a work up. We enter what can only be called a labyrinth.

The doors have a sentry who tells you the way to the room you have to . We walk past a open corrider with two waiting areas on both sides into which four doors open and the waiting areas are filled with people, all chairs taken and enough people standing around. But that is not our room. We need to go to one of the interior rooms. We take a couple of turns and reach this waiting area near our designated room. The ceiling is about six and half feet or so it seems.definitely not ten feet i am usually used to. There is no opening to the outside world, i cannot feel the a/c vent spewing anything.maybe because it is winter. There is nowhere to sit. A couple of spots available are in the last row in the middle of a seat for seven. We pass and stand. We have no idea how we will be called in.There is no token given or displayed. We ask people around. The window where cards were made apparently also create files and send it in and when in reaches, we would be called in.

10 minutes later, i start to feel claustrophobic. I tell the boy am going out to sit in the open and he should call on my phone when doc calls. 10 mins later no call so i come to check. No idea how much more we need to wait. I go out again. 5Mins later the boy comes out to call me in.its his turn and the phone gets no coverage inside. When called in the boy had told the doc that i was outside and the doc said he would wait and to go call me. I enter the doc's room and am stunned. In a room which is at best 6ftX8ft is one table, three doctors and three patients' stools. Two doctors sit at two ends of the table. The third has no table. I can now understand jokes in the Ananda Vikatan of doctors holding up a hand and asking whose pulse this is. The Resident Doctor does a full check of the boy's hand asking questions and recording all data. As i hear them,i can also hear other docs handling a 4-5 year girl with blood cancer and a 12 year old twin who has a birth defect in the spine,while the other twin is healthy. I can see the girl's mother react to my expression as i realise what she is going through. I smile at the child who is looking at me, trying not to let pity enter my face. How do you show comradeship to a complete stranger whose business you should not be overhearing anyway?

The three docs share torches, hammer heads etc. But seem thorough. The work up of the boy was definitely was more exhaustive than either of the two private doctors had done. After 10 mins of the work up, the doctor hands us the file and sends us to the senior doctor. We go across the corridor to another overcroweded waiting area. We elbow our way to the door to hand in the file to join a new queue. I check how many patients before us from the assistant. Five he says. At even 2mins a patient that is ten minutes. I go out into the open for a breath of uncirculated air. 6 minutes later i come in not wanting to push my luck that this doc would wait for me too. Another 7 minutes later we are called in. Thankfully the senior doc has a room to himself with a sofa and patient's stool. Basically the other room all to himself. Sparse but space is clearly the luxury.The doc looks at all the data and asks his first question, looking at me: who are you and why are you with him. I explain. He looks surprised but lets the same be. He checks the boy again and says a couple of tests are required and we need to get referrals made from another doc in another room. Off we go to another cramped docs room. This room has three docs and about seven patients. I elbow myself in and announce i have been asked by the senior doc to get a reference for the tests. One of the docs, holds up his hand for the papers. The papers travel to him through the other patients. I inch my way to the doc and get the referral.

Seeing these young doctors makes you wonder at life. These are rated the best medical minds in the country and the facilities and infrastructure provided are clearly abysmal. That they are still there just shows their dedication to the cause. No way can anybody work there out of snobbery. Any brain drain that AIIMS has is way lower than i would have predicted. The work atmosphere is claustrophobic, stressful and tough. Work may be exciting but it can hardly be enough to keep most people. I cannot imagine very many of my batchmates from IIMA,myself included,who would be willing to work in such circumstances day after day for years with anonymous patients with little time for building relationships or receiving gratitude.

12:00 noon

we reach the lab for the tests. An assistant takes our papers and says to wait. The waiting area is the corridor which is itself only about 6 feet wide. The roof 7 ft. There are three other labs close to ours and the patients and their attendees take up all the space. There are three seats next to each lab. A refrigerator with a thick chain around it and a big lock stands a little way away. A little away stands a steel cupboard. Two of the patients are in wheelchairs and take up part of the corridor. There are people walking through too. The nearest exit is a couple of turns away. The Doc calls us in. Says one of the tests can be done right now but the other one only a few days later since the doc who does it has left. Where i have no idea. He then asks me to wait outside. This room is actually more than twice the size of the other rooms we had been to earlier that day. But i guess they didnot want people hogging space here. I sit outside trying to read as i hear of a Kashmiri boy who lost use of his legs after a fall in school when he was 12, a lady who is losing her sight to diabetes. People feel the need to share experiences at other places. They are clearly overwhelmed by AIIMS and are thankful for it. The hardships are not difficult to go through if things end well.

12:30

the test is done.results would be given on the day of the other test. We move to the physiotherapy department where too we are referred to. The junior doctors look at the boy and say only our senior resident can help you and he is not around. Come back after 2. i ask the boy if he can handle it himself or he wants me around. He can possibly see my eyes wide with nausea from the claustrophobia i have told him i am experiencing. He says he can handle it. I get back home.

Day 3.

We reach the hospital lab at 9 as told to, having purchased the special needle that we need to get ourselves. The needle costs Rs. 500. The boy is second in line. I am feeling better today so stay in the corrider the entire two hours till the test is done. Actually the test took about half hour, the doc took about an hour to get there and another half an hour to get ready. They give the print outs of the results and say to go the senior surgeon doc who had asked for the tests. We reach his room and peek in. He asks why we are here. We explain that results are here and wanted to show him the same. He lets us in, finishes with the patient he was seeing and takes the results from me. Looks at the boy and says your arm is not as damaged as we were worried. It should be okay with physiotherapy. We thank him and go to the physiotheraphy.

The physiotherapist who was to see the boy was missing but the last time he met him, the doc had given the boy his phone nmber and had asked him to meet him after the test results were in. The boy calls and is told he would be in within the next fifteen minutes. We hang around a corridor. No chairs in ths waiting area. The Doc comes in. The room has been carved out of the corridor i think. It is five feet by 12 feet with the door at the narrower end. We walk past another doc and patient to reach our guy. The doc asks whether i am here because he fell in my office. I say no. He asks if i was willing to spend rs. 1200 for a frame to straighten the boy's hand and fingers. I say sure. He says he will call the company that makes the frame and let me know. Until then the boy is to continue the exercises he was taught in the last session.

There after the doc has not met the boy and keeps postponing any appointments.

And there we are stuck.

Here's a boy who can apparently become better than he is right now but we are stuck because the doctor will no longer meet him.

Anecdotal but i think this is pretty much representative of the medical system in the country.

Infrastructure is abysmal, number of patients challenging, doctor morale low and finally patients end up feeling shortchanged. Sure we spent only Rs.10 on the card and 500 on the needle but two of us spent three half days at the hospital in oppressive surroundings when we could be earning a living (the boy is a day worker and i self employed).

I feel sorry for the doctors working there who are underpaid, over worked and clearly frustrated. This is a solvable problem. The solution is clear. Invest in infrastructure. Expand facilities. Invest in people. But you can see when it will happen. Never. The government has never presented a plan to improve these hospitals. VIP wards are probably good to be in.They may not have even seen those low roofed unventilated rooms where patients wait and doctors share rooms while examining patients.

But for this boy, i would have never seen it. Or experienced it. I have spent enough time in military hospitals having been born in one and visiting one everytime someone in the family fell ill. There is a ocean of difference between the two in terms of cleanliness, space and doctor morale. But the MH s show that it is possible for government organizations to build and run good hospitals. Doctor salaries is another sore point that should be handled ASAP. It will pay off more exponentially than i would say MPLAD funds.

Pubs, Thugs and Videotape

India is today a society in turmoil. Most of the attacks on people with excuses of religion, culture and whatnots are actually about control. About an erstwhile dominant section losing control.

The pub bashing incident of Mangalore for example. Take it in perspective of the social change. My niece’s engineering class in Bangalore had more girls than boys in the IT, IS and CSE branches. Each of this girl is likely to find a life partner who matches this qualification or the benefits of such a qualification (read makes as much money). Confidence that these girls have leads them to reject/delay marriage rather than marry below themselves (based on whatever parameters they set). In Tamilnadu Brahmin families today, it is common for the “girl’s family” to not respond to overtures from “boys” families – a distinct change from as little as 20 years ago when I saw my sisters marry. A “boy” in the Middle East has no hope of finding an educated ambitious partner. They have had to move to the US or to India to get one. To give them due respect, a lot of these boys want to marry ambitious girls to whom they can “talk” rather than PYTs whom they need to keep happy. But it is a challenge for all these families. They just are not sure how to cope with it.

So when boys who are not doing too well in their careers (academic and later) see more and more girls becoming independent, they know they are in for trouble when they are out in the marriage market. These girls will never look at them seriously. They would rather marry a Christian or Muslim or a boy from another caste, who has a bright future ahead of him than a dud from their community. Going to the pub for the girls is just an expression of their lives. For these boys it is an alarming loss of control. The girls are moving on. The boys are not. So the easier way according to them…drag the girls to their own level. A few years ago girls of Indian Origin in UK faced exact same problem where if they had a “white” boyfriend, they would get beaten up. The Indian boys actually went on air saying – since white girls don’t go out with us, our catchment area gets reduced if Indian girls go out with others.

The Orissa issues are also similar. About career advancement, reservation benefits and general monetary positions. Those who went to missionary schools, became more educated than the others and hence got better jobs. Had better houses. Had a better life. Lets bring them down to our level. Two incidents – one in Tamilnadu and one in Haryana were attacks on lower caste households. In each case houses of the lower castes were vandalized over a frivolous excuse – to teach them a lesson. Between the pontification on the cause, the mob mentioned, how can they have a nice permanent house full of gadgets when we, the higher caste in the village, don’t. Clearly destroying their property was an attempt to level the differences.

Years ago when the thakur or talaivar’s son walked down the village main street, people looked up and said salaam. It was expected and it happened. Today it only happens if command respect or demand respect (by having succeeded in your career or by threatening dire consequences). Otherwise you are irrelevant. As your family sells more and more property to keep up appearances of success, the lower caste guy’s kid became a engineer and turned out to be a genius at running a business. Unlike a movie,  he may not be plotting revenge for an old slight. He is successful enough to not care what you think. That I think hurts the thakur’s son more. Pre-petrodollar days, the Christians and Muslims were converts whom you never let forget their origins. Then they went to make money on foreign shores and came back to build nice houses for their family. They stopped caring what you thought. That hurt.

Have you checked how brazen these thugs are on videotape? They want it seen by maximum people. They want the girls and the dalits and the muslims to see it all over the state and country. That is what makes me sure it is less about principles or culture and more about controls. In a land where the Pandavas are said to have numerous kids with numerous women during their sojourn in the forest, can we actually defend gender segregation in public spaces? In the land where women make liquor – grape and rice wines have traditionally been made at home by women in parts of the country where it is – you think they never drank it? In a land where a Rani in Jhansi (with the surrounding unverified gossip of a British Lover), and an Indira Gandhi ruled, more and more women are taking to independent thought is not new. It is just getting more and more common.

The erstwhile dominating powers had better learn good and fast. In this flat world, your abilities and skills are going to decide your place in the world. Not your great grandfathers or your chromosomes.