by Manju Gupta
They keep coming and keep getting worse. They have the power to offend and disgust. They cut across class and race, time and space.They launch debates and discussions and lead to protests and walkouts. They may be ignored but are never forgotten, at least by one half of humanity! Yet they keep coming…. Misogynist comments! Their onslaught is relentless. They are deep rooted in the male psyche and a part…
It happens all the time but still manages to irk me. I am offended when men dismiss their home bound wife’s work with ‘kuch nahin karti‘ ( does nothing! ). And since I practice in a small town where people More surprising still, is that women seemingly agree. Once I asked a women what she did all day , and she said there was hardly any work since she had…
Rohtak ki Roohtak From the sprawling lawns of Tilyar where we spent rebellious mass bunks to the Bangar theatre, which was never too far to watch a ‘good’ movie From the pricey Mynah where we dined if someone else was paying to the poor chana wala , outside our hostel gates who would obligingly put extra tomatoes in our chaat Quila road, where we landed bargains because we were medical…
Air isn’t invisible anymore. It can be seen in living rooms, news rooms and the corridors of power. The Supreme Court called Delhi a gas chamber forcing the state government to take some bold steps to curb pollution. The fifteen day experiment proved that majority of Delhites are concerned about the environment and willing to be inconvenienced for the larger good. More importantly it mandated discussions and debates about the…
It was an unlikely group on an implausible journey. Bound by blood and a common past, we liked to call ourselves ‘the originals’. By definition, we are not a legal family – a social unit of adults and their dependant children. Our parents are retired, but not tired octogenarians and we, their offspring, are tiresome, middle aged professionals who still depend on them to break up our fights. It was…
The year that was…… Dr Manju Gupta The medical scene flourished like Old McDonald’s farm, here a quack, there a quack, everywhere a quack quack. Qualified Doctors and Health providers, on the other hand, felt increasingly alienated and persecuted. Incidents of patients and attendants metamorphosing into violent mobs were widely reported. The state and courts weren’t sympathetic either with unheard of compensation being awarded for medical negligence. Legislation to safeguard…
During my visit, at dinner time, we were seated as the maid was laying the table. She brought in the dishes and then I caught her exchanging glances with aunty and vigorously shaking her head. At that point aunty got up and brought in the egg curry and placed it at one end of the table. As we were eating I noticed everyone had politely declined the egg curry. I…
As the year comes to an end my mind wanders to the thousand motorists in New Delhi who spent the early hours of 2016 trying to wriggle out of an unpleasant situation. Last New year eve Delhi Traffic Police had issued challans to nearly 1000 motorists for violating traffic rules out of which 608 were prosecuted for drunken driving. Apart from this seven people who tragically lost their lives in…
It all started with my slipper……and then there was my dad, my dog, my mum, my daughter, my son, my college friends, even a favourite uncle……..there were others too……my phone, a remodelled kitchen and some grumbling gadgets ….and now its about my patients, almost every week! Who knew that my life, whaich, by my own admission, is extraordinarily ordinary could arouse interest and make me feel accomplished. Till a year…
Most of my patients don’t know their age and my usual way of calculating it is by adding twenty to the age of the eldest child. Recently I asked an elde rly patient her age and she said, “teesiyan saal ki toh hogi” ( must be around thirty), regarding her wrinkles and grey hair with mild irritation I asked her the age of her eldest child,” teesiyan saal ki toh…