Click to play videoPune: The tragic incident of some Marathi-speaking youths beating a young man from Uttar Pradesh to death aboard a Mumbai local and attacks on North Indian candidates for a railway recruitment examination centres in Mumbai are pulling Maharashtra and North Indian states in opposite directions.
However, Dr Manasee Palshikar, a Marathi-speaking doctor, refused to give into the man-made regional divide and forged a close bond with her Bihari patients at flood relief camps.
Dr Palshikar spent three weeks treating patients at a flood relief camp in Bihar.
As the only lady doctor in the area, pregnant women walked miles to reach her makeshift clinic. And the Maharashtrian doctor's bond with her Bihari patients was immense.
"The pain felt by a woman in labour in Bihar is the same as the pain experienced in Maharashtra. The language was different but there was tremendous connect," says Dr Palshikar.
But all changed for the doctor from Pune on her way back. It was on October 22 in Patna that she realised what had transpired in Mumbai.
"In Patna, the cook asked me to watch a Bhojpuri channel and I saw the incident that had taken place at the exam centre in Mumbai. The cook said ‘see what your people are doing to our people’. Suddenly, it had become us versus them," she says.
But she still believes there's scope for repair after the incidents of the last few days.
One may believe that borders within the country are meant to be administrative and not divisive, especially for a doctor whose healing touch knows no discrimination.
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