The Danger of a Single Story......my story

I am fortunate to be part of the SEED seminar. It's only just begun, but it's been an interesting journey thus far - it's about mindsets, stereotypes, ideologies, not about the others or the world but about myself. Now, that's interesting isn't it?

Come to think of it; what i see, what i hear, how i react, my actions are all based on what 'i' feel, what 'i' think is right, what 'i' think is the best possible way. I see everything through a lens, my own personal lens. It's mine, so i hold it the way i want to, hold it as far or as close as i want to, hold it for as long as i want to. And what does 'my' lens do? It magnifies the image which 'i' choose to see ten times over. The lens is my own biases which cloud my thinking.

At the last seminar i attended, i had a chance to see this wonderful video, by Chimamanda Adichie. I have read Chimamanda's books and have been fascinated by how her style transports you to her motherland. Post seeing this video, i've come to admire her more.

I'm in the education sector, hence the task given was to write my own single story in this field. This is what i put down....................

“Hi beta!

How are you?

What is that?

Your home work?

Let’s see………..

Hmm……….

Nice!

Do you know what you’ve written?

Or have you just copied?

Can you tell me what this is?”

What makes me entitled to doubting the child?

Doubting if he knows what he has done

Questioning his understanding

Isn’t it because I’m the adult and he the child?

Do i in some deep dark corner consider myself the giver and he the receiver???

But what right do I have to do that, to feel that?

How often in my interactions do I have the ‘holier than thou’ attitude?

Again, who has given me that pedestal?

Is it me, myself???

It is, isn’t it?

Yes i may have been around for fairly long in the organization

Does that mean I know more?

Why do i just assume that a newcomer doesn’t understand the system?

What gives me the right to state that it is the newcomer who has to learn?

Wow! A newcomer! I’m going to learn so much….

Why doesn’t that cross my mind?

Do i consider my position to be of sole proprietorship?

Does the number of years i’ve been around justify that attitude?

Is it my way of seeking validation?

Or is it a reflection of my insecurity?

We’re trying to make systemic reform

Does that mean only my method is THE way to do it?

I have been able to succeed in the past

My students have done well

But that again is what i think

Do my self- assessments make me qualified to be part of the systemic reform?

Why do i not be more open and look for better methodologies?

What gives me the right to consider what i do to be the one and only route?

Is it that i want to be different?

Or is it that i will feel lost among the many successes???

I wonder……………

Too high a price

July 2013, the phone rings. It's a call telling me that Sta,one of my students is seriously ill. The next one and a half months went by for me really fast. Fast forward to September 2014. The phone rings. It's a call telling me that Sti another one of my students is seriously ill. Since that day, my days are blurred.

Sta's parents tried every possible thing to get her treated. The community they live in does have doctors but one doesn't really know if they truly are doctors. So the family decided not to go to them. The government hospitals in Mumbai are huge, have experienced doctors, the necessary facilities. However, courtesy the mighty huge population of this city, treatment here takes time. So, the parents decided against going to these hospitals. What's left - private hospitals. The parents left no stone unturned to ensure that Sta received the best possible treatment. But what  she was being treated for - the family never really knew. The doctors kept prescribing medications/ treatments/ procedures and the parents kept giving their consent with their thumb print. Hospital bills kept rising, family debts kept increasing, but Sta's situation kept deteriorating. It was a losing battle they were all fighting, most of all Sta, but the sad part is, the family was never ever told that it was a battle. They were just told that every new procedure was a step towards her recovery. And that's exactly what Sta's parents and siblings hung on to - the doctor's assurances that she was improving, that she was responding. Hope is what keeps us humans going. It is hope which tells us to keep fighting on. It is hope which makes us believe that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Only thing, in Sta's case, the hope was given by doctors. Qualified doctors who knew she would never pull through, doctors who knew that the parents did not and would not question because they were illiterate, doctors who knew that the parents believed every single word which they told them because they were nothing short of gods in their eyes, doctors who knew that the family was drowning in lakhs of debts. At my first interaction with the doctors, i was asked to convey to the parents that Sta wouldn't pull through.

How does one communicate to parents one fine day that their 21 year old daughter who was so far 'responding' to medication isn't going to survive? How does one reason with the doctors that they weren't right in keeping the truth from the family? How does one see sanity and any sense of ethics when doctors get parents to give their consent with their thumbprint and then when they're confronted say that they never realized they were from the marginalized community? You just go through the motions, you are helpless, you are numb, you hate the fact that you have been 'appointed' the harbinger of bad news, but you do it. You do it because you have to, because everybody is entitled to know the truth about the situation they are in. Sta passed away on the 10th of August 2013. Again a phone call in the morning from the doctors asking me to reach the hospital asap and convey to the parents that their daughter had passed away.

Sta's going away, the way the case was handled, the manner in which the doctors communicated to the family got me thinking - would it have been any different if her parents were literate? Am sure it would have. Sta would've never pulled through, but the parents would have definitely been kept in the loop, maybe a little better prepared.

It's the same situation i'm in for the last two weeks. Sti is gravely ill. Each time i meet her she seems to have deteriorated further. She was being treated, first by a 'godman' and then by the so called 'doctor' in the community she lives in. This 'doctor' Mishra works out of a dingy little room in the community, has no document whatsoever to prove that he's a doctor, says he practices Unani medicine. He too has been telling Sti's mum that she is responding to medication, that he will cure her. Even though we got Sti admitted to the well equipped General Hospital, the mother got her discharged against medical advice because the doctors over there told her that she'd have to wait and watch for a few days before they could commit to anything. Mishra on the other hand gives her hope that Sti is getting better, hence, the mother considers Mishra to be a better doctor. She has blind faith in him, she fails to understand why i question his approach. Y'day, Mishra admitted Sti into a private nursing home which has qualified, certified doctors. The mother has been told that she will be fine, that the doctor in the hospital will cure her. The doctor categorically tells me today that Sti has no hope. Why? Because Sti hasn't been given the necessary treatment by Mishra.

Sti reached out a number of times y'day and today asking me to save her from dying. How do you respond to a request like that from a 21 year old? What do you do? What do you say? It's only been a day in hospital and the family is already in debt.

It was the hope given that made Sti's mum turn to a quack. It is the hope given that isn't stopping the mother from taking loans to pay the private nursing home bills.

Would it have been any different if Sti's mum was literate. Most definitely yes - she wouldn't have turned to a quack, a godman. Sti wouldn't be suffering the way she is today.

Illiteracy...........................It's just too high a price that's being paid because of it.