It’s not a super quick meal, because what we often forget is that while something might be quick to make, eating too fast to enjoy it is counterproductive. Want a fast meal like that? grab a samosa or something.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Eating time: 30 minutes minimum
Ingredients
Whole wheat flour or any atta you can get your hands on – 2 measures
Warm water: 1 measures
2 Eggs
Baking soda: 1 tablespoon
Salt: 1/2-3/4 teaspoon
Melted butter: 1 spoon
Milk: 1/4 measure
Sugar: 2 tablespoons
Stuff that you eat this with:
Coffee, honey, powdered cinnamon or chocolate and salted butter.
Method:
Add the baking soda to the flour, mix.
Beat the eggs, add the sugar, salt, milk. Beat till it is frothy. Set aside
Add warm water to the flour in a deep vessel and use a big spoon to mix
Once the water is over, add the beaten eggs etc.
Keep mixing, you can use any long handle spoon, an egg beater or one of those things that go round and round. (they use it for making buttermilk also)
Now, add the butter.
The batter is done.
let it stand for about 5 minutes as you heat the skillet (non stick) and make coffee etc.
Pour one dollop of the stuff which should be the consistency of thick cream onto the hot skillet.
If you’ve got it right, it will flatten into a small disk and small holes will appear all over the uncooked surface (from bubbles of air rising so fast you can see it)
Once the pancake is covered in holes, flip it
Wait till the edges start browning and raising off the skillet,
Repeat till the desired number of pancakes is ready. 2 cups of flour should give you around 8- 10 depending on size. I like mine the size of a flattened tennis ball. Or a poori.
To serve:
Sprinkle some cinnamon or cholo powder on top, add butter liberally, have coffee ready and sit down with some honey (maple syrup is fattening)
But next to Mary, these other girls were ponderous. Their feet were sluggish, their positioning not so clever. She could fight with her guard down, testing her reflexes by offering them her bare chin as a target, and counter-attacking in angles unfamiliar to boxers who take the orthodox stance.
All around the gym the girls furtively watched her. They covet her low-gravity wound-up springiness, her pure petite explosiveness. They would love to lunge so wide and fast, and never need to wrestle or go to the ropes. Aggression is her hallmark, and it makes her exhilarating to watch.
“Yeh leh Mary,” Mr Bhaskar Bhatt goads her, “take this. And this.” This too is the play of boxing.
“He tries to make me angry,” she says later, “but I have to be cool.” Her grimace is hidden by her white gumshield. You can feel her burn; it’s been 80 minutes now.
Neera Chandhoke, who teaches political science at the University of Delhi, and is director of the Developing Countries Research Centre, University of Delhi, takes a detailed look at the rise and fall of Civil society in India. She traces its history, political challenges, failures and success.
One of the most creative of Marxist theorists, Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), had warned us that liberal democratic states possess formidable capacities to harness civil society to their projects of domination. Civil society, according to Gramsci, is the space, where the state and the dominant classes produce and reproduce projects of hegemony. And this is exactly what has happened in India. The rush of political theory that acclaimed civil society in the aftermath of the Velvet Revolutions of 1989 eagerly claimed that it is only the third sphere that can take on the state and the market. The participants in the debate had forgotten Gramsci. And they paid a heavy price for this, because liberal democratic states – and India is one of the most sophisticated of this genre of states – quickly moved to neutralise civil society by laying down the boundaries of what is politically permissible and what is not.
Dear fellow Doctor; from your Facebook posts, emails to me and tweets, it is obvious to me that the Satyamev Jayate episode on corruption in healthcare worried you deeply. some of you were happy that such an exposé happened, but most of you were worried that there was over-dramatization and untruth in the presentation, and that this would lead to doctors loosing respect in the sights of their patients. As it is, India is known for its violence towards healthcare personnel, it is only fair that you feel that people would use this show as an excuse to attack more doctors.
I too, felt that many of the things Mr. Amir Khan said were unbelievable, some of them were clearly exaggerations and one-sided and I wondered about the truth behind the cases he presented.
But before we jump into another analysis of how Amir Khan got his medicine wrong, let’s look at a few other things.
Here is a list of some of the recent healthcare related scams and exposes that happened independent of Mr. Khan
AMRI, Kolkata hospital fire – revealed bad infrastructure, collusion of top doctors in hushing up things, lack of training and preparation in dealing with emergencies.
Female infanticide – Millions of female babies are being aborted. A phenomenon Involving parents, Radiologists, Gynecologists.
IMA protesting against nurses strike even as they support doctor’s strikes. This, in-spite of the horrendous working conditions and pay of nurses.
MCI’s dissolution – It was so corrupt, that even a corrupt government had to agree.
Surrogate mother industry – poor women being exploited, paid, but not as much as promised, not following international norms in number of pregnancies.
Harvesting of ova- recent report shows how this is probably harming young girls without their knowledge.
The AYUSH report – No standardization, AYUSH doctors prescribing non AYUSH medication.
There are more, of course.
Let’s now look at the main points raised by Amir Khan in his program; not specific cases, because he is not a doctor and is not qualified to make judgment calls on treatments given to patients. Let us just look at the basic complaints patients had.
There is lack of communication between doctors and patients. They don’t feel like they are part of the decision-making process about their own disease.
There is a lot of bad handling of deaths, accidental deaths etc. News not being shared, defensiveness, etc.
Actions of many or some doctors is leading to a wide-spread distrust or doctors, more so because if you go to 2-3 doctors for the same problem, they often suggest different treatments
Issues with improper consent taking and explaining of need for surgeries and other procedures.
Lack of information about what a hospital is licensed to do, what training doctors have, and the fear that people without sufficient training are treating them.
Referral fees, cuts and other forms of bribes paid to doctors affecting medical judgment.
Money being a major deciding factor in issuing medical college licenses and other kinds of licensees.
Bad policing by medical bodies leading to un-checked unethical and bad medical practices.
Too much power held by private players who don’t care about medicine, just profit.
For the government, healthcare spending seems to be low priority.
Poor get differential treatment.
Is any of this fabricated or unreal?
They are real; you and I know this.
We are poor communicators, busy as hell, running between wards and OPD or from one clinic to other, often we just cannot find the time to sit down and explain things to each patient. There is also the problem that what we think is communication might not be what the patient wants, and our training does not really help or prepare us to communicate better.
All of you have heard stories, of patients being admitted into the ICU for what turned out to be gastritis, and probably seen patients who have had two cholecystectomies and appendixes removed from both sides of the body. This happens, a lot, and it is a frustration we all share.
How can we reconcile with the fact that an unknown, but very large part of healthcare practice in India has a less than ideal or even acceptable level of quality and that the system is designed not for the patient, but for the professional?
While we mull on that, here are some things he got wrong, in brief.
Using branded expensive drugs and not cheap generics – Not all drugs have generics, not all generics are tested, and in many instances there is significant difference in quality. There is also the patient’s expectation to use standard medicines. Much as I hate them, I can trust the quality of medicine made by a large pharma company, how do I trust a generic?
Healthcare as a business is not necessarily evil, and the solutions that were put forward, including making everything government run is simply out of touch with reality. Your neighborhood green grocer is a businessman; this does not mean he will sell you poisoned vegetables if it gives him better profits. Businesses can be run ethically, and markets have great power of self-regulation.
Doctors have a right to livelihood. Just because we are doctors, to expect sacrificial living is ridiculous. If indeed, as Amir Khan suggests, we are the smartest of the lot, then we deserve proportionate incomes.
Doctors control only a part of the healthcare system; costs of drugs are for most parts out of our control, as are institutional costs. Blaming doctors for high cost of drugs comes from not understanding the basics.
Doctors have an exalted position, but this kind of a mess could not have been created without collusion and involvement of regulators, businesses, government, other members of the medical team, and the market. Blaming just us is myopic.
“Most doctors in India need to get their licenses revoked” is an unforgivably careless and unsubstantiated claim. While I don’t want an apology from him, Mr. Khan should know that it only displays his ignorance.
“Will not see a doctor in India” What about Devi Shetty? Again, a very careless thing to say, but hey, it’s his choice. There are people who don’t want to vaccinate their kids, some people even say this on TV, but that is their choice, their life.
Back to the show.
Most of the reactions against the show hinged on one of the cases discussed in which there was ambiguity about the process. In this clamor to prove that Amir Khan got his medicine wrong, we forgot and ignored the other stuff, the stuff that I listed above.
I think when a critique is mounted against you, it is important to look close and hard at yourself and the community you belong to. Where there is smoke, there is bound to be a fire you don’t want! Most often people don’t have the time to bother to criticize you — except when you cause a great deal of pain. Criticism is an opportunity, a possible door to transform a process — it has to be nurtured, not snuffed out with hurt defensiveness.
Could we benefit from such a show? Can we use this time to weed out or at least distance ourselves from those whose practices all of us find distasteful?
Doctors are at a particular advantage here; it doesn’t matter how famous Amir khan is, it doesn’t matter how widely his message reaches, people still need doctors. Maybe we can use this as an opportunity to make things better.
Let’s agree to this:
People who were on the show are real people; I think it is safe to assume that they were speaking their truth. Even if one of them was not, there were others who were. They don’t need to speak untruth because there is no lack of bad diagnoses being handed out. We need to live with the fact that there are unscrupulous doctors, and we all know people who fit the bill. Protesting this fact is only helping them.
Amir Khan is an actor. He runs a reality TV show. He is not a scientist, has no background in public administration, and the show is not a journal nor a scientific exposition. There will be things wrong with the show. He will get facts wrong. Have you met people who spend their Sunday morning reading out the Journal of Industrial Biochemistry to their families? Didn’t think so. Facts are often boring, Mr. Khan will try to make them attractive and sometimes, the real face will get buried under the make-up.
No silly excuses. Some of you made what is possibly the silliest of excuses, ever. “Everybody is doing it, why target Doctors?” SILLY. I’m going to let you figure out why.
We work long hours, the pay isn’t amazing, the system is corrupt, without cutbacks and the pharma parties, life would be tough. We want that to change, we want to practice great medicine and have a life. We want pays that are proportionate to our effort and attainment, we would like to be respected and acknowledged for the good work we do.
How is cursing Amir Khan helping us achieve any of that? What will help? I think we know some of the answers, not all of them. What are they? Lets talk.
I am giddy with glee to announce that I will be writing a monthly column about the practice of medicine and related issues at eSocialSciences, a “region-focused repository and a new and yet evolving publication space for easy and quick dissemination of scholarly work that can be a space for discourse among researchers, policy makers and the civil society.”
This month’s column is about communication and medicine. Medicine is all about good communication, they say, yet, very little is said or taught in most medical schools about how to be good at it. Do read and comment.
Medical school began with a series of “introduction to medicine” lectures. One of them was on communication, taught by the same professor who introduced us to medical ethics.
In the medical ethics class, through a case-discussion, she impressed upon us the need for being non-judgmental when dealing with patients. She did a fantastic job, considering she had just one 45 minute lecture. Her lecture on communications, though, is a blur. In my defense it was 11 years ago and I remember her parting words very well. When we told her after the lecture that there was just one session on communication and this clearly needed more sessions she said “I’ve been telling them, but who listens to psychiatrists?”
Doctors and other healthcare professionals, I would love to hear more from you about this, and related topics. Do comment.
I asked to review The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino in spite of not being a fan of modern murder-mysteries. Here is why “…..won the 134th Naoki Prize , the 6th Honkaku Mystery Grand Prize, 2006 Honkaku Mystery Best 10 and Kono Mystery ga Sugoi! 2006, annual mystery fiction guide books published in Japan, ranked the novel as the number one”(Wikipedia). I’ve read only serious books for a while now and thought an international whodunit would make a good change.
This novel is part of a detective series in which an assistant professor of physics, Manabu Yukawa, nicknamed “Detective Galileo,” helps his college friend, Detective Kusanagi of the Tokyo Police, in his investigations. Manabu is portrayed as a hard-core scientist, a genius whose ability to logically solve problems is unmatched. Yes, a gainfully employed Japanese Sherlock Holmes without the flair and cocaine. The story is a cage fight between a physicist and a mathematician, and what happens when unforseen variables are introduced into an otherwise perfect equation.
In this story, he stumbles across his college friend Shinji Togashi, who is somehow involved in the latest case.
It is a short, absorbing read, even though not as “thrilling” as a western murder mystery would be, nor as laid back as Poirot was. Yukawa is a brooding-brilliant man and Detective Kusanagi is a sharp typical copper.
The story begins when, Yasuko Hanaoka an ex-hostess accidentally kills her abusive ex husband who had been stalking her and threatening her daughter. Togashi, who is her neighbor and has a crush on her hears the ruckus and comes over and helps them clean up the mess. He tells them that he would “take care of everything” and they just had to do as he said. Togashi who we later discover to be a mathematical genius spins a “perfect formula” to ensure that the police cannot catch Hanaoka for the crime.
The police and Professor Yukawa come into the picture when an unknown man’s body washes up on a nearby river’s bank and some snooping by the police reveals its connection to Yasuko and later, Togashi. The author has done a fantastic job at leading us on, unraveling a mystery we think we already know an end to.
The clue-deduction chain is almost perfect, yet mysterious enough to leave us guessing till the end, when Yukawa makes a crucial decision about his friend’s guilt based on a passing remark by Togashi. That was a leap of faith and far too crucial for the story to be taken lightly, and it almost spoils the ending, but a twist upon a twist that the author delivers, even if predictably melodramatic, saves the ending.
In all, it is a well written story, good detection, a few plot-holes but saved by drama. Not extraordinary, but above average.
Note: I received this book from Blogadda for review.
Update: Legal voices on Twitter have pointed out that the legal notice that Vidyut received is stupid, as Vidyut is the author, not an intermediary, and the IT bill applies only to intermediaries. This means, that she does not have to take down her content, but the lawyers can make her ISP block her website if she does not, yes, without a court hearing. In short, the IT bill is evil, but has not legally been used against her yet. It has been used, but it was a stupid, uninformed illegal use.
A blogger and dear friend Vidyut Kale had written a post about the raid on the Belvedere yacht party, where she also exposed a history of financial misdoings by Lt Col (retd) Gautam Dutta. She has received a take down notice for her article being defamatory. The IT Rules are so arbitrary that she has no chance to defend herself against the takedown, because no explanation or even verification of the premise of the take down notice being correct is required. Anyone getting the takedown notice is legally required to take their content down within 36 hours or they lose protections as intermediaries.
While she is also the author, her position as the owner of the blog makes her vulnerable to these threats if her blog is to survive. She has no experience of fighting court cases, and can’t afford a lawyer, while the persons sending her the notice have a large law firm at their command. It is not defamation if her content is provable through RTI documents, but to prove it, she will have to violate the IT Rules, lose protection and fight several years in court – to save a post that exposes corruption in sailing on technicalities lawyers can exploit for people with the money to throw, while bloggers can be victimized out of any serious truth seeking by the simple virtue of not having enough money.
She is the same blogger that blogged to draw attention to the Keenan and Reuben murders when mainstream media had reported the story and let it go. Her efforts led to large-scale media attention that helped the poor families get attention to their case and prevent the killers from going scot-free. This can be verified by searching for Keenan and Reuben, and her blog – aamjanata.com is one of the top results. Two posts she did compiling news coverage was extensively refered to by others covering the case. She raised questions that were important to not be ignored.
She has also reported on and followed the case of Naina Singh’s dowry death, where the police were refusing to file an FIR. She created a group of people to support Naina’s mother as well as found local lawyers (Delhi) who would help her approach courts to get directions for filing an FIR. The FIR was filed five months after Naina Singh’s death.
She has blogged extensively on issues of national interest, freedom of speech and human rights.
In reporting stories from the RTI documents related to sailing scams she was again covering an area that is not big enough for mainstream media, but an important leak of money as well as integrity for the country. Not to mention the illegal practices around sailing making it a security risk through norms of “looking the other way”.
VIdyut, who is a housewife and has little income is at serious risk of being attacked by a team of seasoned lawyers with money to burn. for daring expose corrupt practices. This is a very concerning sign for freedom of speech and whistle blowing in our country. Any media attention highlighting her situation and precarious situation of smaller content producers in India like bloggers, independent artists, cartoonists, etc and the role played by the IT Rules will go a long way in protecting their rights and drawing attention to their victimization.
MP P Rajeeve is moving a motion in the Rajya Sabha for the IT Rules to be annulled for being unconstitutional, but without appropriate attention, it may not happen or may be too late for many like her.
I have known Vidyut now for some two years, initially drawn to the fire in her writings and tweets, and then getting to know her as a dear and dependable friend. It saddens me that the IT bill is striking so close to home, and I hope sincerely for Vidyut’s sake and for the sake of the freedom of expression in general that the IT bill gets annulled and this case gets the treatment it deserves.
Imagine if you had to tear down your house just because your neighbour alleged that it was irritating him. Yes, it is that bad, no court needs to convict Vidyut for her to take down the content, and if the lawyer is not satisfied by that, her blog. All it takes is to register a case and send a notice to her ISP.
Thanks to helpful lawyers we know now that the IT bill’s invocation against Vidyut was an error or a threat tactic by Mr. Gupta’s Lawyers, but the sword of the IT bill still hangs on her head, if she does not comply with the notice, they can easily get the ISP to block her site, no case nothing needed. I hope, of course that this does not happen, and at lease one of the swords hanging over her head is removed by the end of the day today.
Spread this message – email it to your friends, post it on Facebook, the IT bill needs to go, and if it doesnt, our freedom will.
I discovered a quote from Shyam Benegal’s essay on tumblr via Dhrupad and was hooked. I discovered that the quote was from a longer essay on the formulaic nature of Hindi cinema and the problems new cinema was facing and some solutions. I have a 1400 word long excerpt from that essay, which you can read in full at the above link. But before we jump into Shyam Benegal and his lovely essay, here is the symposium’s topic defined.
The problem
India’s film industry has manufactured and peddled over many decades a distinctly unique commodity to a wide and unsuspecting audience. Based primarily on fantasy, it has mocked at every value in a richly diverse culture. Mock heroism, mock sex, mock dancing,mock singing, mock religion, mock revolution — the lot. In its end product, it has shown the degree of degradation to which a transparently synthetic approach can lead. Its influence on society has been startling — in dress, styles of living, methods of working and,most shatteringly, in the dreams and aspirations of a deprived people. The bizarre world of the screen is the world to reach for. Unfortunately, this commodity faced no challenge of any stature until the arrival of the new Bengali film under Satyajit Ray. His Pather Panchali showed that films could be made with little finance, and no stars, and with integrity. Since then, there has been a gentle struggling, a push here, an upsurge there, a raising of more authentic voices, the slow birth of an indigenous cinema. But, it is beset with problems. Finance, distribution and, infinitely more serious, that of communicating in a medium which is not mock fantasy any more. For, the audience has come to regard the film as synonymous with a particular breed of song, dance, vulgarity, burlesque, violence, crudity, escape, often under the mush of misleading progressive situations — rich man poor girl, rigid father growing son, erring husband devoted wife, etc. Is it ready, even in small measure, to receive a new experience from a familiar medium? If not, then how can the struggling new cinema survive and break through an obvious initial rejection.
The success formula Shyam Benegal
THE Hindi film business ,in India consists largely of working out the equations to make commercially successful films and then to work out a strategy of publicity and distribution to fake in the largest profits possible—a vast, speculative activity that begins with formulating and analysing the success of any one or more films running at any given time in terms of what makes them tick, which usually means the right mix of ‘ingredients’ such as stars, songs, and music, the plot innovations and a generous helping of what are known as production values such as enormously expensive sets and property, lavish public relations’ devices like parties replete with cabaret items in five star hotel suites.
There are storywriters who will produce on call’ several plot lines lifted from successful films, mainly from Bombay and Hollywood as well as from popular western writers like James Hadley Chase to produce a biryani of a film all ready to be hogged by the film-going public for 50 weeks or more in cinemas all over the country. There is a huge demand for well-known stars to act in these films and for music directors to turn out their lilting songs, and for dancers to give new, sexy turns to’ their cabaret items.
The directors who direct them are recipients of paeans of praise for their originality. The producers are the happiest with their success and end up signing up more and bigger stars for their next ventures as distributors willingly take even greater risks by committing larger sums of money for each territory. The pattern of business points to an industry that is happily and profitably stewing in its own juice.
There are several kinds of success formulae. Each one is specifically categorised, such as social drama (meaning poor boy/rich girl or vice versa), family drama (lost child, suffering widow, large doses of amnesia), action movie (good man-turned-bad dacoit-turned-good man), historical (now not much in vogue) or mythological (generous helpings of sex relating to gods and goddesses). In each category, the need is for the biggest star or stars. If you can afford it, you would have all of them together. The music director is chosen according to the size of his contribution to the latest hit songs (do I hear a resemblance between his tunes and the top-of-the-pop in London?). Similarly, the ace writers. Writers, of course, do not really write. They sit in posh hotel suites and narrate scenes for the next day’s shooting.
It is an expensive and serious business. Very expensive. And films flop. Despite or, perhaps, because of this, the Indian film industry ticks. Flop is a relative term. Very few films are known to fail altogether. The only thing that might happen to a film is that it may recover its cost over a longer period of time
Shyam Benegal 2010
The serious problems that beset the industry are the highly inflated rates paid to the marquee names in the film—the stars, the music directors and, recently, the music directors. There are stars who sign up for as many as 50 films at a time. Logically, it would take him or her about ten years or more of work every day to complete so many films, but they are signed up nevertheless. Similarly with music directors. The chances are that a lot of money spent on such films will prove to be irrecoverable because the films are not likely to see the light of day. And whatever is spent in signing up to start the film will be lost forever. This constitutes an enormous waste. Then,again, there is the matter of dates.
It costs a lot of money to set up a shooting schedule. In this situation, if a star cannot give dates the entire expense in mounting the schedule is lost. The stars themselves under these conditions tend to develop an inflated sense of their own importance. They feel
no obligation to keep to their schedules, nor do they feel the slightest compunction to break appointments—a bit like successful politicians. They appear to follow no normal set of rules.
Again, there is a reason for this behavior. Most producers have no money to begin with. They trade on the names of stars, music directors and writers to raise money. The stars are generally very insecure, never sure that any of their films ar going to be completed. They cannot possibly take the risk of signing just one of two films. if the films do not get off the ground and get stuck mid way they are out of jobs. Nothing is worse than an actor without a job.
The distributors who market films have defined their films as those meant: (a) for the masses, (b) for the classes, (c) art films that will attract no audiences. The films that are likely to be the biggest successes are the ones made for the ‘masses’. They could be defined as films that are utterly naive in their story content, with non-existent character development and two dimensional emotional and intellectual attitudes.
Films that will fetch the highest price are the ones that have the largest number of stars, a storyline replete with what are now essentials — thrills and chills, rape scenes, dance numbers and cabarets, choreographed fights and comedy. (There are specialists who are known as ‘thrill masters’ apart from ‘fight masters’ and ‘dance master’. Soon one expects there will be ‘rape masters’) Brilliant colours and sharp cutting is a must.
…….xxx…………
He goes on to talk about the costs incurred by producers in a typical film and establishes the reason why the films are shot they way they are. Then he moves on into the need for a sustaining structure for alternate cinema
…….xxx……..
If we are serious about developing an alternate cinema, the FFC would have to develop a distribution circuit that is able to compete for audiences with the regular so called commercial films. In addition to this the cost liability for the production would have to be borne
Censorship
A more insidious development in films has been caused by outside factors. Paternalistic and straight-laced censorship has made film producers increasingly irresponsible. As we all know, authority of a certain kind often creates an irresponsible attitude in those who are under it—they expect to be corrected rather than correct themselves. This has become so acute, that many films only attempt to push in directions in which the censor board is likely to be heavy-handed, only to check out how far they can go. Often, the only innovation in a film comes in the techniques to project ‘soft’ pornography or violence that would catch the censors napping. This has led to the making of films which encourage ugly social attitudes, particularly between men and women. They are done with such crudity that one wonders whether those who see such films come unscathed out of them.
As is well known that with cinema, particularly when it happens to be the only entertainment medium, life starts to imitate film. We have only to look at those parts of the country where film is the only entertainment, medium to see that this is true. The way boys regard girls, the way they dress themselves, the kind of music they enjoy most, the speech they use—and with the new-rich—the kind of interiors they have, replicas of film sets.
Yet. with all this, a different kind of film also runs. Audiences will see films that reflect social realities. All that it requires is the kind of distribution which the commercial industry provides. The movement has already started. What is needed is the infra-structure that will make it self-generating.
Indian film or, more particularly, the Hindi film, from its very origin has developed its formats’ from the existing theatrical forms. The songs, The dances, the main plot and its comic parody, have all been absorbed by the cinema. If the alternate cinema has to grow, it cannot ignore these factors^ An extension of these forms is needed rather than unfamiliar ones and a far truer depiction of social realities. Only then will it be able to seriously compete for audiences. Short of this, the new cinema will be guilty of producing films for the sake of a small cineaste elite
This post is culled from an exchange in a medical group I am a member of. Mr. Srivats has kindly granted my permission to reproduce this gem of a letter. Pay particular attention to the last 3 paragraphs.
Dear Friends,
As I promised in my previous mail, I am adding to the question of the relation between expertise and the politics of health care based on the progression of the Gentamycin – Co-trimoxazole debate. I would remind those who don’t know me, that I am not a doctor, I have little knowledge about these drugs, or drugs in general, and my intervention is related to precisely how to negotiate expert knowledge and a democratic form of medicine.
The specific case here is the exchange between Drs. Sri and S about the pros and cons of discussing such a complex issue in a public forum. On the one hand, I am able to see entirely the validity of Dr. S’s concern that imprecise knowledge and opinions can result in confusion, especially in a multilayered group like the xx egroup. On the other hand, it is precisely the question of expertise and the need to give direction without causing confusion that runs against the problem of a democratic medicine. Should we prevent confusion? Yes, if possible. Should we discuss the matter openly with a group that doesn’t have expertise in the matter — Yes, certainly. Whether it is the case of medical intervention for babies or nuclear power at Koodankulam (I am taking this comparison because of the expert dimension and impact on populations here too), the answer has to remain positive. How do we resolve this dilemma? Not only at the level of health care professionals, but also at the level of patients and communities.
This is where I feel that the position of the doctor as an educator must be examined. Do we have general discussions with parents and the community about giving injections to new-born children? Or oral medication? They certainly won’t have any expertise but they will know what the baby is actually going through on a 24×7 basis. I also have it on some authority that in the rural areas and perhaps among the poor in general, injections are a sign of a ‘good doctor’. It is therefore likely that they would welcome injections for their children without in any way of knowing about the risks and consequences. But I feel since the risk is theirs — their children’s lives to be precise — they should know, confusing or not. I will stress here that there is no point in romanticizing the people in the neoliberal mode — ‘people know best and they must make an informed consent’ — as we all know from the clinical trials scenario, informed consent is a travesty of the right to know what is being done to your body. Yet, I can’t help feeling a discussion must begin, with a democratic education and consciousness raising practice among committed medical professionals. I hope this doesn’t sound like preaching — it is more an exploration of possible avenues for a critical medical practice.
About toxicity and side effects too. This is a general aspect of medical care in its history — the positive iatrogenic effects of medicine (i.e. not the failures of medicine due to bad practice) but the costs of the successes of medicine in patients lives and health over generations of research, shots in the dark, and development. In the final analysis it simply isn’t enough for the doctor to decide that a particular percentage is below the threshold of significance and that therefore the particular medicine can be treated as safe. How can a democratic medicine begin to function in such a way that people know about the risks they take. And yet, I am aware that the general consensus (and medical science’s opinion) is that such an approach is impossible, but isn’t such a conversation imaginable (at the simplest, individual level, and at a much more sophisticated community level): ‘One in ten thousand babies who are given this medicine die, however, it is also documented that the following benefits do occur to the majority who are given it — do you want to take the risk?” to which the parent replies “No” or “Ok, Inshallah!”
It is perhaps likely that doctors who ask these questions will lose their practice to the confident practitioner who simply goes ahead and gives the injection or the tablet — but that raises another problem. How do we educate people out of this blind faith in the expert? The question is how to make the engagement with the doctor a face to face encounter, rather than one of command and obedience.
Would the members of xx feel it is necessary to pioneer this difficult political practice of a critical democratization of expertise? Not in the sense of making everybody technologically equal, but in the sense of teaching people to think about a decision making process on an issue that has bearing on their infants’ mortality (or any such issue of medical care)?
R Srivatsan
Senior Fellow
Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies
As far as metrics go, Kony 2012 was a success. some 10 million people have watched the video and I don’t know of another social justice issue that so many people have heard of, let alone watched a half hour movie on.
As far as the production goes, KONY2012 was a job well done. I don’t have the metrics for how many people watched it the whole 30 minutes, but even if half the total number did, they did because the movie was made well, it was gripping and reportedly moved millions to tears.
If all publicity is good publicity, there never has been a better justice campaign like KONY2012. The white house has taken notice, as have governments in many places.
Also, if the age-metrics of Youtube are taken into consideration, a remarkable number of young minds have been made aware that young children like them are living in awful conditions in this world and that they can, and should do something about it.
But
It was discovered that people closely associated with KONY 2012 have also been instrumental in arming the present regime, which is as despotic as Kony was.
The campaign turned out to have a specific political aim, which it disguised as a human rights issue.
It fed the white savior industrial complex and hid a lot of information that would have caused people to think and be better informed.
It lead to nothing more than ‘awareness”. Kony is still free, and will be for the forseeable future
So
Success or failure, it is worthwhile to learn something from Kony
People care about other people
People can be manipulated easily
For something to go viral, you need to do a lot of background work, call it creating a tribe.
If your message lacks a call to action and a way to act, it will eventually be forgotten
You might be successful at manipulating emotions, but it is likely to come back to haunt you.
