Ladybug's field notes

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...

We spent the night under open sky in Kusumkhet. They gave me a string cot. There were many more cots around. We were still waiting for the rain in May end that year. You will remember the bus stand was 3.5 km away. Villagers had informed us that night, the only bus for the town leaves at 8 am.  Shivaji bhau,  my colleague and I hence woke up by 6 am and were ready to go after our morning cup of black tea. Most tribals in India do not take milk from animals and hence a cup of tea with milk is almost non-existent. We started by 7 am, well in time for our bus. The path was full of ups and downs both literally and figuratively. On our way, we discussed tribals and their relations to the forest. Forest department and their role figured into our discussion and the nice discussion soon turned into hot debate with facts and figures and global trends. It was Shivaji bhau's turn to present his set of arguments as we reached the top of a small hillock and that caused an end ...

In a winter morning, I travelled from Nagpur to the south western tip of Madhya Pradesh, the heartland of India. Balaghat district is close to 3 other states at least, Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Even Orissa is not far away. State borders have their own problems everywhere. Naxalism or violent guerrilla wars in small pockets for changing social order (termed as biggest internal security threat in India by the present PM) is prevalent in the region. Whether it works towards changing the social order or not, this gives the reluctant authorities another reason to keep away from the area. Baigas are a Primitive Tribe Group (PTGs) and has a history of being pushed or rather shoved around. Baigas like to live in small communities in far flung areas and mostly deep inside the forests and on the hill tops. Their hamlets in this area are in and around the famous Kanha National Park.  Baigas are reducing in number every year even in the absence of any govern...

This was in Thane district of Maharastra before the monsoon. I spent one and a half day in the field doing nothing due to mis-communication, in the very begining. I and my colleague spent about 36 hours in a village named Nandgaon. We slept in the open veranda in the afternoon sweating and waiting for rain and did so in the night too. As soon as the sun went down, we climbed up the hillock nearby and stood on top of the biggest rock available and we waved our hands like people stranded in uninhabited islands to get signal in our respective mobiles. My colleague was much taller than me so he could talk normally whereas I had to shout on top of my voice keeping the phone up in the air in loudspeaker mode just to convey home that I was fine (winking)! The incident early next morning was the crowning glory of this part of the trip. A cow followed me when I left for my nature’s call and I do not want you to puke by telling why it did so! But, yes Indian cows of Hindu mythology like variety...

There was a perfectly round hole on Baske’s forehead! Yes. a hole. One that caught my attention the moment I saw him. I thought at first, he was in the army and got a bullet injury but then rejected the theory the next second! Nobody would probably survive a bullet injury that is exactly at the middle of one's forehead. When I visited him, he was sitting on a charpoy in his open yard, legs folded close to his chest. When he squinted his eyes to look at us it seemed he was annoyed but, then he smiled at my uncle accompanying me. Baske seemed as old as my uncle but it is difficult to guess the age of any peasant in the countryside working in the field for 10 hours a day from the age of 10…they all look over 60 the moment they reach anywhere near 40. I was in his village working on a project to understand whether tribal culture itself keeps the tribal away from modern medicine. As you can see, I was checking a theorem deeply rooted in the colonial-urban mindset. My uncle t...