Ladybug's field notes

My Jethima (my much older Aunt) and I shared a special bond. She pampered me and let me eat jam which I loved but could only have limited occasional amount at my own home which my mother ran in a tight budget. Jethima or Jimma as I called her was special to me for many other things too. She would let me read "n" number of story books. I could sing and dance at home. Dirty her drawing room. She did not think I was particularly naughty. I was, but it always helped when others (very few)  did not think so. However, that one day, when she came out of the bathroom, after I had used it, she did not look pleased. She called me to her room and whispered in a hard voice, "Are you menstruating? I saw some clots in the bathroom floor. Was that yours?" I was 13. I said, "No." She probed further. I had never seen her being steely like that. It broke my heart as I said "...but Jimma I would then need pads, right? And I would have to throw them too and you could h...

I am new to the field of health. I was so unaware of so many things that last year when I started visiting the health clinics run by Rural Medical Practitioners (RMPs) or quacks in Uttar Pradesh, I was shocked to see them. Since then I have traveled to many government and non-governmental health facilities (not the fancy private ones) and the my shockers are behaving better. However this note is not about how bad the public health facilities are, this is about a pleasant surprise that I encountered during my recent visit to one of the High Priority Districts of Rajasthan. This is about the human spirit that I celebrate whenever I encounter. This is about making the best given all the constraints in the system.  We all know the statistics. Our health sector is suffering from chronic problem around human resource. We dont have enough doctors in the public sector (the lure of private sector is too much), not enough nurses, ANMs (Auxiliary Nursing Matron) and now in Rajasthan the...

I would start this write up with a mail that I had once written to The Telegraph in response to a column by a certain Ms Singh who ridiculed the idea of tribe groups protecting forests. She compared forest dwellers'claiming the land they have been living-in, with Waqf board claiming Taj Mahal. Laughable as it may seem now, for me, who was then working with the groups that were fighting for the passage of Forest Dweller's bill, it was enough to sit down and write a scathing letter to the editor and my boiling blood (which is colder by 10 years now!) made me make two "personal" comments. I said probably the author's limited exposure to the tribal and forest villages had led her to believe forests can not be protected in presence of human inhabitants living there whereas history shows in India, communities were brought-in, to protect forests (Van Tongiys for example). And I made a reference to her privileged upbringing. The editor of the news paper thankfully omitt...

This blog post came to my mind while going through many writings in the recent past on how a whole generation of us have been taught to establish man woman equality. And on a lighter vein, how seriously we took that role!  When I joined the development sector, I was out to prove anything that a man of my age could do, I could do too. And working in SRUTI, a NGO that supported activists in far flung areas of the country, I was subjected to the toughest of the tests in this regard. To begin with SRUTI was highly skeptical about adding a woman to their team (of men, largely). I had to jump into proving that I was no less than a "man in the team" the moment I joined. I joined on 5th of May and I was sent to Jhabua area of Madhya Pradesh for a month starting 11th of May. This post is specifically about the struggles of washing one self in the areas where there was no concept of a bathroom and men, with whom you were travelling did not think they should try to make any extra ...

Rains make me nostalgic about Odisha. No! Not Mumbai, you snob Mumbaikars! Although you happen to be some of my closest friends, I must say you are way too snob on that and I have taken up this sovereign duty on my shoulders to make sure you learn that there can be non-stop rain in other parts of the country too. And no! "Aala..aala paausaa" is not the only song of its kind.  I spent 4 eventful years in Odisha and learnt names of places that my Odiya friends never heard of . That is among other things I mean. What did you think now?! My work involved travelling to various tribal districts of Odisha which included,  Boudh , Jharsuguda, Sundargarh, Rayagada, Nayagarh,   Dhenkanal  and Angul. Dhenkanal is known for its educational institutes and Angul generally reminds people of the big factories including National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) but I saw a different Angul and a very different Dhenkanal. This is a post to share that story. Pallahara Blo...