A little ray of light in the dark saga of sanitation in India

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It's not just data. It's a fact, a fact that threw me off when I was doing my research on this story. More than half the population of my country don't have toilets! How can that be? I asked myself. I checked and cross-checked shuddering how naïve I have been or should I say self-absorbed with not an iota of self-reproach, not a whiff of willingness to know beyond my clean, urban haven. I knew open defecation is wildly common, as a young girl I have giggled many a times my train would cross rows of men and women defecating near the tracks as I would force myself to stay up to see the sunrise glistening through my window. Now, I am too tired, so the shutters go down and the sun is shut out as is that world of more than 50 per cent of my fellow....

A disease lurks Byangoland

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It's a terrible disease and it's spreading very fast. The symptoms are pronounced. It is known to make humans contort their faces, sometimes even expose their teeth. Bodies shake violently with strange sounds coming from the lips. It has been there since the time of plague but no one noticed it till it claimed its first victim in several years in the Eastern state of Byangoland last week. According to records, the victim was a 50-year-old chemistry professor. First, the local quacks tried to beat the virus out of the body but nothing worked. The doctors had to intervene. They took him and his 74-year-old neighbour to the local hospital to surgically remove a bone which causes and spread this dangerous malaise. The operation lasted several hours through the night. They were released the next day but there are apprehensions that they haven't been fully cured and might....

When the tigress left the jungle...

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She called her a 'tigress'. The 37-year-old Park street rape victim was grateful to one woman who believed in her and her account when no one else dared. Eyes darting across the room at the two armed guards standing at the door, holding her two daughters tight, I met her scared and confused. She asked me why she needed to prove her rape over and over again in a bizarre spectacle that her life had become. The only thing that kept her going was the pain that she went through and the justice that she sought. Only one woman understood that perhaps. Damayanti Sen, 'the tigress', who did the unthinkable - proved her innocence and tried to nail the culprits. When the police commissioner of the city held a press conference elaborating on the 'discrepancies' in her account, when the chief minister of the state called....

A rape of the senses in Kolkata

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'How can a mother of two leave behind her children and go to a bar to drink?' 'She is a divorcee, she drinks beer, she goes to bars, makes eye-contacts with strangers and gets into their cars' ' Why should police be blamed? Why did she take two days to file a complaint?' 'What was she doing in the middle of the night at Park Street?' 'It's an attempt to malign the government. Truth will come out.' 'How is it possible in a moving car? Which position was he in?' They ask in whispers. They demand answers. They make pronouncements. They insinuate, they doubt. From the common man on the road, to the woman at the helm, to the men in uniform, to the netas in the studios, everyone has a question, an opinion and an idea. They ask who,....

AMRI fire: That Friday morning

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It was a little before 6 am. I got a call. There was a fire at AMRI. My mother woke up next to me asking me what happened. Normally early morning calls always brought bad news. I switched on the TV, threw some clothes on and ran. Next five minutes were frantic - calls were made to find out information, calls were made to office to give information, calls were made to figure out the logistics and a thought that rankled the most was that my mother was admitted at the ICU of that hospital not too long ago which I was trying to brush aside. AMRI is a hospital close home. I have been there numerous times when I sprained my ankle, when I had a bad cold, when my mother had to be rushed to the emergency and now today a hospital where a fire is smoldering somewhere....