Bitter medicine

                                                       It all started in 1957 when I joined St Mary’s Convent, Allahabad in my kindergartens. Back then, the school was co-educational in the nursery classes. There was this girl in my class, Kusum Bhatnagar, whom I had the uncanny knack of calling Kusum Bhattacharya, I do not know for what reason. The relevant fact is that I was then infinitely fond of that girl, and she probably likewise, for we always sat next to each other in class. We always had our tiffin together in the lunch break, and loved to share the food. We always helped each other with the classwork. That time it was customary for the class teacher to reward good work with scrap pictures often with glazes, and we always compared and admired our ‘scraps’. We always chose to partner each other when we we...

            It is not news that a movie has been well made or scripted. News these days is whether it makes it to the 100 crores club or breaks box office records. Politicians are less concerned by the ‘state of welfare’, or any change thereof, of its ‘proletariat’, but more concerned with their religious commitments or any changes thereof. This is not unexpected in a nation obsessed with religion, and caste. Ever since I can remember, every blessed form that I filled in, even prescription I wrote, carried the blanks for religion and caste. This caste based distinction and segregation has pushed the nation into an abyss, from which it is difficult to conceive how we will extricate ourselves, if and when we are able to. Leaving the caste factor aside before a thousand daggers are drawn against me, the boohoo about religion is difficult to fathom.             To many like me, religion is a very ...

My first memories of my father extend to the time when I was three years old. My father was the Superintendant of the Mental Hospital (now Psychiatric centre) at Jaipur. He had just been diagnosed with hypertension. There were very few medicines like Rauwolfia and Adelphane for hypertension at that time, and the prognosis was considered rather bleak with a great risk of coronary artery disease. My father went into a depression, and once I saw him in tears. I used to love to sing and my father had bought me a HMV gramophone so that I could sing along. One such song was form the film Nastik. I began singing that song Himmat na haar, Prabhu ko pukar, Who hi teri naaya lagayega paar Tanik bhi tilmilana na, zara bhi dil hilana na Hazaar haathwala hai Bhagwan Ho naiya wale ho, savdhan He stopped crying and hugged me At the age of six, I left him to stay with my maternal uncle to take care of my education. Thereafter, I used to see him only when I came home during the ...