Santhosh's ramblings

We now live in a house that once belonged to my parents and that we have since inherited. Two decades ago, every house in our colony was occupied. In our lane of 11 houses, only four are occupied today. The rest stand empty, waiting for demolition or renovation. In one sense, the houses are still there, but the homes have disappeared. And yet, quite a bit of construction continues around us—high-rises and flats coming up everywhere, as if the buildings had secretly decided to multiply. Of course there is huge money behind it too.  Three decades ago, there were no high-rises in our town. Today, even in our sleepy small town, there are many. Within a one-kilometre radius of our house, I counted about seven. The nearest one has 16 floors and 64 flats, but at night I can see only about 10 lights on, which suggests that only around 10 are occupied.   So the issue is this: we seem to have more houses, but fewer homes. Houses are buildings. Homes are where people live with care, sa...

Last week, I was in a hospital when a surgeon friend asked me to get an injection from the pharmacy for a small procedure. Unfortunately, the one he wanted was not available. A junior surgeon then asked my friend, the senior surgeon, whether there was an alternative. Without hesitation, he said, “Let us get Injection STD.” As a physician, I immediately smiled because, to me, STD means “Sexually Transmitted Disease.” I told them, “Look, I am a physician, and I only know one STD.” They burst out laughing and explained that, for surgeons, STD meant Sodium Tetradecyl Sulphate.  Later, after the procedure was over, I asked, “Why STD? Why not STS?” After all, the name itself seemed to point in that direction. My friend simply shrugged and said, “I do not know; we have always called it STD.” Perhaps some senior surgeon with a mischievous sense of humour once decided to call it STD instead of STS, and the name stuck. Surgeons probably need such humour to lighten th...

Many of the everyday conversations in our hometown come back to identity . When people here talk about help at home, in the fields, or in the garden, the answer is often, “A Bengali helps us.” At first, I wondered why everyone seemed to be from Bengal. Then I realised that “Bengali” had become a convenient catch-all label. Over the past year or so, I’ve met people from Bihar, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Nepal, and yes, sometimes Bengal too. The Indian in me finds it hard to place everyone under one name. Once I began asking where people were actually from, I discovered links to places where we had lived and worked, heard some encouraging stories, and saw their faces brighten when I tried my broken Bhojpuri or Nepali. They are here because of the TINA factor (There Is No Alternative).  Of course, this is not new. For years, we South Indians were casually called “Madrasis” — until Madras became Chennai and the label became a little less convenient. Perhaps that is why people a...