57. What matters at the end is ingenuity

The Lady Ninkharsag

Bad news holds currency, subsuming whatever little good that lies littered around. That has been the way of life, lately. Had I not read hugely popular Factfulness by noted statistician Hans Rosling who stressed that one must strive to get the good things out in the public, it wouldn't have occurred to me to revisit the momentous weeks I had spent in Aleppo, before this historic oldest inhabited city was devastated beyond recognition in the unending war since 2012 in Syria - the citadel of civilization.  

Aleppo's largest covered market, Al-Madina Souq, with its almost 13-km long and narrow alleys could belittle any modern shopping mall for the diversity of merchandise on offer, from luxury goods to raw silk, and from spices to carpets. The market also housed the heritage-tagged public bath, Hammam al-Nahhasin, as much known for its intricate wooden interiors of the Ottoman era as the exquisite modern facilities on offer to the bathers, both men and women.   

My sweet memories of the city are embodied in the miniature but perfect replica of The Lady Ninkharsag on my desk. That piece of memorabilia was sold to me as the Goddess of Prosperity by the young counter-girl at the Aleppo museum, which I later learnt was better known as the Goddess of Irrigation. Does irrigation in a dry region not lead to prosperity? In my solitude, I often speak to the goddess to help restore the war-ravaged region to its historic prosperity. Amen!

Need I say that not only the city, but its women have been one-of-the-most beautiful. My Chinese colleague Wu would translate his appreciation for the native beauty - 'it is the frequency of beautiful women that makes it a distinct place'. I could not agree with him more as every second women was as beautiful. Considered a deeply religious and conservative country, in contrast its women were as comfortably shrouded in a burqa as snugly unveiled in the modern western outfits.   

What was a crude cultural shock then was the ease with which I found women negotiating purchase of most outrageous pieces of inner wears with the male salespersons. Forthright displays of scantily covered mannequins' with fishnet negligees, fake flowers adorned bikini sets, and G-strings with flimsy plastic mobile phones didn't raise any eyebrows. Someone had commented that even Madonna would blush to wear such all showing bawdy creativity with a wicked sense of humor.

Were the Middle East women more liberated then we had ever thought or were they at ease in celebrating their lives in private? Much later I found answer in the research by two London-based Arab women, Rana Salam and Malu Halasa, who had revealed that it was an all-men fledgling industry that gave the over-the-top lingerie choice to women both as a tool for sexual expression as well as a desperate defense against straying husbands. It had made Syria world-leader in kinkiest leisure wear.  

There was more to learn from the Syrian way of life. For just ten local pounds, one could buy a pack of pre-cooked rotis (bread) at any grocery shop. My impression that such gesture by the state may have been towards the poor was shattered when my host had served the same rotis in my farewell dinner, telling me with pride that the state was compassionate towards its people - ensuring equity in food security through cooked food, and not raw grains.     

It is hard to fathom how the world could transform such good news upside down, and persist with it.

First published in Deccan Herald dated March 16, 2020.

56. Thrill is worth a try, risk it

Avoiding danger is not safer in the long run

It is only recently, after he turned 70, that he sought to do away with the impulsive act he defined as 'thrill', something that seems to have eluded the forthright government official. Having known him from his pre-retirement days, I used to wonder why he would avoid using the 'red beacon' on his official car. It was a facility, he would suggest, that an already privileged officer can easily let go. Interestingly, his office gifted him the red beacon as a parting gift. 

Having found a new toy, he started floundering it on his private car to evade dispensing toll fee at the highways. Visibly elated but equally relieved, the feeling of deja vu lasted quite a few trips on the highway. Why would you do so when you were scared doing it? That is the fun of doing it, he would say. If one isn't scared, something is surely wrong, because the thrill is in itself scary. The day it isn't scary, there won't be any thrill in taking the risk.     

Howsoever thrilling, can such socially frivolous act be justified? Keep your moral prism aside, he stresses, any thrilling act has an intellectual side and is inherently creative. Without an iota of embarrassment, he tells me that hacking, the undesired act of breaking into the systems, was initiated by curious cyber kids who pursued it as an act of intellectual inquiry to draw thrill in the pursuit of knowledge. Little was realized then that one day hacking will be a big business.

Jumping toll comes naturally to us, as we are wired to breaking norms. Some do it, but most avoid risking it. Any act that helps stay clear of social norms or break institutional barriers evokes thrill, resultant adrenaline rush gives an unexpected kick. What is more, the sense of privilege that comes from being skillfully different heightens the right to enjoy oneself. You need to engage in the little things, within limits of civility, that would ordinarily bore you will suddenly thrill you.  

This is where the family during their Bali sojourn got it wrong, forced to unpack all that they had conveniently flicked from their hotel room, because it tantalized itself with hopes of possible fortune. Rest, as they say, has become history. That they had allowed the sense of obsession to get beyond what could have been the thrill of adventure dig them in. All said, the thrill of something new or weird is immensely alluring! One must not avoid getting one's thrill on. 

If there's even a slight chance of getting something that will make you happy, risk it. Author Helen Keller had remarked 'avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure'. With age no bar, life is either a daring adventure or nothing,  

First published in Deccan Herald, issue dated Oct 4, 2019.

55. The leftovers of cross-border hostility

Despite my wife’s trepidation, I couldn’t resist travelling to support local communities in their post-war rehabilitation, just about the time when the guns were falling silent during the Kargil War. The occasional thunder from the burning ammunition dump that had been targeted by the enemy didn't bother the locals who had been through the worst.    
Some 30,000 people were uprooted from their homes, had lost their animals, and more importantly, the productive three summer months. Having extended unconditional support to the armed forces during those testing months, the locals expected more than what came their way as relief. There were several, like the chaiwallah at Drass, overlooking the imposing battlefield of the infamous Tiger Hills, who had extended their undeterred services under gunfire. 

From the treacherous heights of Batalik to the undulating dry slopes of Mushko valley, I gathered stories of trauma and courage from hundreds of villagers in Chanigund, Drass, Holiyal, Kharboo and Trespone. Village residents dreaded going to their fields as unexploded bombs were suspected to be still scattered around. That such bombs had claimed the lives of two young boys was still fresh in their minds. I spotted a half-buried mortar in an abandoned field in Kharboo. For humans and cattle, the agricultural farms had become the new killing fields.   

In all, some 4,000 families were evacuated from as many as 52 villages, not a small number in a sparsely populated cold-desert region. Noticeable was the resilience of the communities, and their hand-holding. Trespone, a village with 370 households located about 20 km from Kargil, had played host to all families from the border village of Kaksar — the first village to be evacuated. I had made a failed attempt to seek benevolence of the resource-stretched district administration for the households. One from the village, Tahir Hussain, had questioned if seeking compensation for the goodwill extended to their brethren wasn’t unethical! 

It wasn’t easy to convince the administration that as much as the displaced, the hosts too needed to be counted in the relief and rehabilitation package. Much to my surprise, affected households demanded fuelwood and not food as relief. Survival during harsh winter, which was already knocking at their door, could be possible without food, but not without fuelwood to keep the homes warm and liveable.  

War had traumatised a large number of children. Eleven-year-old Mohammad Abuzor was one of the several children who witnessed the unfolding war. Alone at home when the war erupted, he was the first to see bullets hit his grandmother. He had sought help from an Army picket before the entire village of Kaksar was evacuated. Like others, his blank eyes were reflective of a gloomy future. 

As I recall those days, I wonder how might have Abuzor grown as one of those directly affected by the war.

First published in The Tribune, issue dated Aug 3, 2019

54. Jhumka by another name

It is the stuff of legend that products and places pride their identity from. Think of it, the ash gourd sweet candy called petha has given Agra its distinct geographical indication label. Far from discounting the Mughal legacy, I am only accentuating it by bringing the petha in as this sweet originated in the kitchens of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, Synonym to each other, the product extends emotional and cultural bonding to the place. Such intricate is their interrelation that neither can be stripped of the other.  

Come to think of it, not every place may be as popular but rarely is any place without a distinct cultural output of some kind though. We only need to look around. Aamir Khan starrer Piku revived memories of my train travel beyond Lucknow wherein I had first tasted ladoos of a different kind. Named after the non-descript town Sandila, the soft and paler country cousin of the glamorous boondi ladoo has lent an identity to this small town in Hardoi district in Uttar Pradesh. But for these ladoos, Sandila would have remained a dot on the map. 

Not much is being done to either identify and establish, or revive and restore such distinct cultural identities of small towns and cities. Either crass commercialization has uprooted geographical indicators from their place of origin or overt homogenization of cities has erased such cultural identities. Take the case of Pratapgarh in Rajasthan. This small town is the birth place of that intricate gold-glass fused jewelry called thewa. Ironically, thewa has gone places but its birth place does not register in popular imagination any bit.  

I am convinced that a little spark of madness on the part of the city administrators can turn things around. There is little doubt that tossing a cultural identity will only do good to the existence of a city. The myth of the dangling earring, the ubiquitous jhumka, lost in the street of Bareilly has remained in popular imagination for over half a century. Thanks to well-known lyricist Raja Mehndi Ali Khan who rhymed Bareilly into his melodious composition jhumka gira re bareilly ke bazaar me for the immensely popular film Mera Saya.

Stories about how bareilly was rhymed into the song abound on the internet, but noticeable is the fact that jhumka has finally caught the imagination of the Bareilly Development Authority in drawing plans to give shape to the city's mythical jhumka identity at its entrance by installing a replica of this piece of jewelry, 12-14 feet in height and 2.43 meter in diameter. Only by preserving the uniqueness of a place, real or imaginary, can the distinct character of cities be restored from overt homogenization.

More than being just 'smart', cities need cultural icons and not concrete structures to bond with its residents. For those bent upon renaming cities/places, there are secular ideas up for grabs!

First published in The Tribune, issue dated Sep 24, 2019, and The Hindu dated Oct 13, 2019.

53. When being dumb is smart !

Like others of my generation, I offered unsolicited advice to my young niece to be smart enough to shun modern gadgets, as obsession for mobile handset makes one dumber. Far from taking it kindly, she chided me for my naivety and suggested that I better read the Dunning-Kruger effect to stand corrected. Even before I could make any sense of it she quipped nonchalantly ‘why acquire new knowledge when less of it can do the trick’, and moved on with her unfinished task on the mobile.  

I haven’t got the academic credentials to challenge the researcher duo of David Dunning and Justin Kruger at the Cornell University who created such an ‘effect’, but have been intrigued by their conclusion that ‘the dumber you are, the more confident you are that you're not actually dumb'. What’s more, they have identified a human trait that prevents a person from acquiring new knowledge to become smart..   

Although it will take time for the DK effect to sink in, I find living evidences in gadget-zombies roaming all around that being 'smart' may not be the in-thing it used to be in not too distant past! I may not be the only one who seem to have sensed it. Wear your thinking cap or glasses or shirt or whatever, and you will get to feel it - 'smart’ has ceased to be what most of us have grown working towards in our younger days! 'Smart' is no longer a virtue, being 'dumb' adds value to your profile. 

Whether you doubt it or accept it, this change is right upon us. While most parents remain somewhat circumspect, youngsters are undoubtedly in awe of themselves. Loaded with self-belief, and lots of selfie, they go beyond the natural brashness of being young. They are no longer windbags that many had thought of them in the past, they are smart err dumb enough not to carry any baggage of knowledge as much of it is only a click away. 

No wonder, my telling the young lady to be smart was not taken kindly by her. Youngsters like her seem to be telling in no certain terms that smart as a goal of life is anything but passé. They would appreciate parents to be less persuasive on their children to be 'smart'. "If with an average IQ George Bush Jr. could rule the USA and the World for almost a decade, what the fuss about being smart is all about', she questions.  

And, the catch is that letting people think a little less of you is always helpful to get away with some silly stuff without it being counted against you. Smart people are known to make stupid mistakes while the stupid escape getting caught for the same. There are any number of examples to prove the point, perhaps the reason for my niece to press home the idea. She even went to the extent of telling me that humans have lost the evolutionary pressure to be 'smart'.

Having used our intelligence to create artificial intelligence, I doubt if there is much left for humans to get any further. Rightly so, as it is better to be dumb when things around are becoming 'smart' - from smart phones to smart kitchens and from smarts cars to smart cities. Let everything else be 'smart' but for us. Amen!  

First published in The Tribune, issue dated July 2, 2019, and in Deccan Herald on Sep 23, 2019. 

52. Paradox is in plenty

Paradox: You see what you don't

Many strange situations have confirmed that life is indeed a paradox, rather a bundle of paradoxes. Like most of you, there was often little on offer when I pushed myself hard but was stunned with the unexpected when I didn't, all through my life. For me, it isn't providence but in-built contradictions within a given case or a situation. Else, who would have thought that we would feel increasing isolation despite being best connected than ever before. 

I have come to the conclusion that the more we seem to understand the more we are left to comprehend, as life foxes us with more questions. Paradox reigns supreme! Therefore, it is said that people make decisions based not on what they actually want to do but on what they think that other people want to do, with the result that everybody decides to do something that nobody really wants to do, but only what they thought that everybody else wanted to do. I am reminded of Oscar Wilde who while saying 'I can resist anything except temptation' actually defined paradox as something that triggers us to give in to tempting things while imagining that we can hold firm and resist them.

I am quite convinced that 'paradox' peps up life by teasing us to think differently. How else will anybody understand such a trivia - 'truth is honey, which is bitter'. Does it not convey the virtues of bitter truth better? Whether one likes it or not, paradoxical statements or situations turn ambiguous stuff upside down, generating interest in what might seem silly or self-contradictory. Don't just stop there, it also assists in justifying many of our daily actions about which we are often cool. He turned it into a logical puzzle!

Come elections, and such puzzle becomes glaringly evident. We abhor lies, but support compulsive lair(s); we loathe corruption, but vote dishonest candidate(s); we despise empty promises, but end-up being lured into them; and, we detest deceit but not without getting trapped into it. We seem to consume that we don't normally digest! Surprisingly, all that which earns our disdain in daily dealings gets preference under certain circumstances. Why such are the ways of life? I am as baffled as you might be on such an attitude or approach under crunch situations.    

When I look around I find lots of stuff that paradox is made of, indeed a daily reality! We may not realize it but we all are party to perpetuating it. Else, how could poorly paid watchmen protect millions stacked in bank lockers; how best of cars be driven by lowly paid drivers with dubious licenses; how could middle-class households accommodate under-nourished maids to cooks nutritious food for them; and how could frail-looking chowkidars, who are rarely in the best of their health guard residential apartments. The list doesn't end here!

I can only say that when it comes to paradox, less is more! 

First published in Deccan Herald, issue dated May 23, 2019. 

51. I have switched to watching women cricket!

After almost a lifetime of following cricket, first on radio and later on television, I have switched on to watching women cricket in the last couple of years. While I have started skipping few of the men's matches, I try not to miss any international match that feature our young girls. While my friends and family wonder at my new-found obsession, I have compelling reason for shifting my alliance from the men's world of cricket. The turning point of my cricket-watching career must not remain unsaid.   

When asked by a reporter 'who her favourite men’s cricketer was', the world's leading run scorer and India's captain Mithali Raj had responded, 'do you ask the same question to a male cricketer? do you ask them who their favourite female cricketer is?' Emphatic! Confident! Bravo! It not only signaled the coming of age of women cricket in India, but the sheer confidence with these words were hurled had left the scribe speechless. Nothing more was needed for me to back our own girls in the game.      

Mithali, Harmanpreet, Smrithi and Jhoolan are some of the household names, their batting and bowling is doing most of the talking though! Mithali has the world's highest 6,700 runs on one-day games; Jhulan's 271 wickets are the most in the same format; Harmanpreet is the first woman to score a century in T20 cricket; and Smrithi has been the ICC Cricketer of the Year for 2018. Given their grit and determination, more records will be theirs in the years ahead. Mark my words, these girls are making themselves count on world cricket circuit.

For those who still imagine that women cricket isn't as exciting should get that impression corrected at the earliest. Harmanpreet's 171 not out against Australia in the ICC Women's World Cup in 2017 will remain etched in cricket history like Kapil Dev's 175 not out against Zimbabwe during 1983 Men's World Cup. Kapil Dev had hit 16 fours and 6 sixes in his 138-balls innings. In comparison, Harmanpreet's 171 runs in just 115 balls were studded with 20 fours and 7 huge sixes. No comparison, but it was power hitting at its best!

Women's cricket is a sport in itself, and I agree with Mithali when she says that 'it should not be compared to men's cricket'. It is evolving as a game, and is building its own fan following. Although most of the current players learnt the basics of the game while playing with boys and have even been coached by men, the likes of bowler Ekta Bisht and batter Poonam Raut have edged themselves to establish their distinct identity in the game. The inspiring stories of current women players is fast attracting young talent.

Hailing from humble non-cricketing backgrounds, the girls are doing well to breach the male bastion. In fact, they have already done it to some extent. With live telecasts of most women matches now available, they are not only being watched but are attracting revenue from sponsors to keep them in the hunt. With women cricket league on IPL format in the offing in the country, the game of cricket will open a new avenue for talented girls to make it as their career option. 

Women may have been cheer-leaders for men's cricket, it is now time for men to cheer women cricketers. The sooner it is done, the better for the game. The scream for a leg-before; the call for a quick single, the holler for a catch, and the boisterous victory hugs add the missing glamour quotient to cricket. There are any number of reasons for avid cricket fans to switch to the feminine version of the game. Don't miss out!

First published in The Tribune, issue dated March 8, 2019.

50. Social beverage of our times

German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's 19th century remarks 'people never lie as much during a war or before an election' have come to life in recent times. Perhaps, it is the most convenient thing to do, and more so in a situation wherein a war (or a warlike situation) precedes elections! How does one fake the facts holds the key? With 'lie' having outlived its relevance, both as a noun and a verb, its less offensive and universally acceptable avatar - fake - has replaced it. In fact, fake is a potent currency in the market which earns rich dividends in a short time as it travels faster than the speed of light.

A lie may need to be told often enough times to become the truth, but fake has become a one-time wonder. You release it once, and what returns to your inbox is nothing but fake coated in the guise of the truth. It will earn you mass following on Twitter, help you receive unprecedented number of likes on Facebook, and inundate you with innumerable compliments on WhatsApp. You begin to wonder if the world was waiting out their to lap it up, and give it a cooperative legitimacy. I am beginning to learn that fake is fast becoming euphemism for instant fame! Is it the new normal lurking around?            

Had Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn been alive he would have rephrased his remarks by replacing lie with fake to read: 'fake has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the state'. To rally along fake is considered an act of cooperation, that politicians use for projecting so-called public good in the guise of justifying vested interests/entrenched violence. Far from being challenged, the enduring qualities of fake engage the social media and the public like never before. Like milk, the more you churn it the better it is. Utterly butterly fake-cious!

I don't know if it worries you that fake is fast gaining public recognition, as an essential aspect of our collective existence. George Bush Jr. must be credited for setting up the stage for it. By virtue of having stayed in the White House for almost a decade, the former US President had inadvertently become fond of telling white lies. Else, he could not have convinced the world that there were 'weapons of mass destruction' hidden in Iraq? The fact remains that no such weapons were ever found. The shocking truth is that it led to writing a new history, rather a bloody history, in the middle-east on a rather fake edifice.  

One problem with fake news is that it works, and the message that 'fake it till you make it' is loud and clear. I checked with my intellectual buddies who are as much awe-struck as anybody else is. On the other hand, psycho-analysts are still juggling on their diagnosis, almost close to arguing that fake is but an evolved form of lie which has got a short-time therapeutic value too. Nor surprise, for every thing real there is an equivalent fake too! Not only are goods fake, but fake facts are being produced too. 

My conclusion on the subject is that we have come a along way - it could easily be called a 'fake yug'. While truth could be 'half-truth' or even a 'quarter', fake is the new truth that we may have to live with for the rest of our lives. I hope I am not too early with my judgement, but as of now fake seems essential to humanity but not truth. While truth is desirable, fake is inevitable! 

Isn't it a social beverage that most of us are getting addicted to?

First published in Deccan Herald, issue dated July 25, 2019. 

49. The race of a lifetime

Beating each other on slush track
(Pic: Luke Metelerkemp)

It was a race of a lifetime I was witness to. It neither involved horses nor cars but a pair of buffaloes racing on a slushy track with a determined athlete in toe. Much like the sturdy pair of bovine, the six-pack athlete was no less determined to win the race either. With hundreds of villagers cheering the racing duo, it has been a long-held tradition of celebrating the man-animal co-existence for a bountiful harvest in coastal Karnataka. And, there were any number of teams from different coastal villages vying for the coveted title.      

I had my first brush with this cultural extravaganza, called Kambala, few years ago in village Venur in the coastal region of Mangalore. It was a pleasant wintry evening in January 2011, the well-lit arena was decked up in celebration with people in all hues thronging the racing track. What had begun as a thanksgiving event for protecting the cattle against diseases, the annual racing event has grown into a competitive sport that enthralls and entertains. The animal rights activists may continue to think otherwise!  

Keeping pace with raging buffaloes on the slush track was indeed testing, as if bovines were running for their life. Racing at an incredible speed, it was a perfect test for human endurance against incredible bovine power. For the fear of running over, half a dozen villagers had to herd together to take control of the animals at the finish line. They would calm the animals by giving it a hug, make it eat and rest before the next race. Each of the racing pairs looked well groomed and healthy, as did the accompanying athletes.

Were the animals tortured during training? Were these creatures intoxicated to run the way they did? The organizers had led me to the animal resting places to find for myself if that was the case. 'These are no ordinary cattle, they bring laurels to the village', quipped a team member. These are treated like sportsmen, nurtured and trained in the art of racing from early years. No wonder, there were no marks of external injury on any of the participating animals. So much is at stake that some owners train their buffaloes in separate swimming pool for getting them used to conditions before every race.

That these are special animals, treated like children and selected for their sturdy features including disease resistance, make me think that this annual cultural event is more than just an occasion for fun and frolic. It promotes the process of natural selection in disguise. The best among buffaloes get selected, nurtured and tested. The animals people race are the animals that help breed the next generation of calves, sturdy to withstand adverse conditions. That such a valuable process is conducted by the communities at their own initiative, and for the benefit of the society at large surely calls for a celebration!      

With hardly anything worth celebrating in the countryside these days, the assent for re-conduct of Kambala by the first citizen of the country has given something for the last citizens to cheer about.

Let the race continue!

Kambala was banned in 2014, but the President of India gave his assent for (re)conducting the sporting event from July 3, 2017.  

First published in Deccan Herald, issue dated March 1, 2019. 

48. On the deathbed of profit

Not far from reality: Even a dead man is worth millions for the hospital
to meet its targets in the movie Gabbar is Back. 

Narrating his pathetic experience at a premier hospital recently, a friend painfully concludes that the cash-strapped middle class is literally on its deathbed. Bereft of empathy for the grievously injured, the hospital held back his patient's admission for want of treatment charges upfront. Isn't the scene of a patient from an alarm-blaring ambulance being off-loaded onto a stretcher and rushed into the hospital emergency anything but passé, relegated instead to our socialist-era memories? With profit being the overriding concern in a market-economy, patient is only a cash-cow to be milked right at the hospital gate. Who knows the cow may not yield anything later?

This reminds me what  Dr P Venugopal, the illustrious heart surgeon, had to say about the business of modern medicine. Said he, `medical thrillers' wildest plots of ruthless profiteering are now common practice'. Into his 90's, my father finds it hard to believe that the swanky hospitals are anything but profit-making entities. To make the system deliver, the super-specialty hospitals do give their doctors monthly/annual targets for the number of scans and surgeries. Such targets extend to other disciplines of medicine too, with the ever eager doctors ready to bring unsuspecting patients under scissor and scalpel. A visit to the hospital is anything but a trap, so will I imagine. 

And I have reasons to say so. Those under health insurance cover are subjected to as many medical tests as available in the book. One test leads to another, and so on. The eye specialist recently told me that I had a remote cataract possibility (projected to occur after a decade) but that she'd want to do some advance tests. A second opinion helped me rest the initiative. I wonder how do those people whose life is not insured handle the hefty medical bills! At the end of the day, sustaining or complicating one's sickness has become doctor's primary interest. The more people fall sick, the more the doctor and the hospital stand to gain! Such is the case that if everybody were to remain healthy, then the doctor will be the only one who will be sick. 

Not all blame need to rest with the doctors though! It is not sheer accident that the things are the way they are, but rather the product of conscious political choices. Scratch the surface and one will find out that the foundations of insurance-driven health care system were laid under the guise of freeing the governments from their primary role as health service provider, helping the capitalist model of health care to make hay as sickness shines. I have kept along my bedside a 2006 book curiously titled 'Screwed', to keep reminding me what author Thom Hartmann had long cautioned that the corporate-driven politics will eventually screw us all. Exceptions apart, a majority is already being screwed, by paying to remain sick in the system. 

Sickness has become so much profitable that it is no surprise that every corporate house is into the business of healthcare, and why not? The question is how to get out of this vicious trap. Without a 360 degree shift in how health is perceived, there can hardly be any escape from the sickness treadmill. A Chinese system, developed some two thousand years ago, offers an interesting insight. Under that system the doctor was paid as long as the patient remained healthy. If the patient were to fall sick, then the doctor was not to be paid. In the present system, however, we pay the doctor when we are sick and make the doctor dependent on our sickness. The difference is subtle but profound nonetheless, and worth a careful assessment.

Unless the outdated benefits system that overburdens doctors and traumatizes the vulnerable is condemned, I'm convinced that a vast majority will remain sick and screwed. There is an urgent need to rethink how we manage sickness—for the sake of our economy, our well-being, and our health services.

Feedback: Pallavi Bhardwaj from New York writes that it  is more or less universal now, whether one is  in Delhi, Bengaluru or NYC. In the US, it’s very profitable to be in the healthcare business, as the whole system is rigged. Our monthly healthcare premium for a family of three is higher than our house rent here! That too when my husband gets the insurance through his work. And, we don’t even use a primary care physician or the full annual checkups. Dutch reader Fokke Fennema wonders how long it will take healthcare system in his country to be sucked by privatization! 

(Also available on www.raagdelhi.com)

47. Converting shame into subjectivity

It isn't a good news that the much hyped Swachh Bharat Mission has not made significant dent, as of now, on transforming peoples' habit of easing themselves in the open. Recent surveys have shown that a toilet doesn't ensure its usage, reaffirming what V S Naipaul propounded decades ago that people prefer open defecation to avoid the fear of claustrophobia within a closet. As habits die hard, we are literally back to where it all started. Building toilets and making people use it are two different things. 

Unlike many of you, I'm getting convinced that we may have run out of ideas for now to get everyone to shit inside a toilet. The sheer number of toilets required for the country to attain some level of decency would be in the range of some 350 million, assuming that a family of five takes turn to use the same loo. The number will continue to grow - as population grows exponentially, as families break into smaller units, and as households migrate. Even a full-time Toilet Ministry will feel fully stretched to keep pace.

But why are we stuck to toilet as the only option, the absence of which favours the foreign tourists with some stinking photo opportunity? Unlike the west, toilets for a vast majority that survives on less than $2 a day may not be a good idea. For them, easing in public seems a democratic decree. It has worked thus far, and may sustain during our lifetime. Because public empathy towards squatting has remained secular, never did it trigger any class or caste strife in matter of appropriating public space for conducting private action. 

Shit in itself may not be a problem. Left on its own, it engages millions of microbes in enriching the soil with much needed organic carbon. We all know fixing carbon is a climate friendly activity. But the moment it comes in contact with water, something that a toilet facilitates, the trouble starts. Each water body, be it a pond or a river, gets an undesired share of floating excreta at various stages of decomposition which proves fatal to some half a million children below the age of five on account of water-borne diseases. 

With its extensive paraphernalia the toilet makes unreasonable demand on increasingly scarce public resource - water, which limits toilet usage alongside amplifying the water crises. I would imagine that the solution to country's sanitation enigma may rest in recognizing existing 'informal squatter islands' as permanent municipal spaces where individual waste will get managed in a way that produces subjectivity than shame. The role of municipality would then be limited to aesthetically managing such islands, upturning the soil periodically and getting it ready for next volume of bowel discharge before such squatter islands are turned into public parks or sold at a premium to the real estate builders. 

It has worked this way so far, but not in an institutionally organized manner. I think we need to be firm on how we wish to tackle the crises ingeniously. If there could be `nude beaches' elsewhere in the west, can't we persist with such `butt parks' till the offenders take a call to mend their habit.