Santhosh's ramblings

The breaking period was over, and most of us managed to come through the 1 st MBBS – the Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry saga, though some friends had to wait a few more months! This was in no way the assessment of who broke in or not, but part of life, some go fast some go a bit slower, but at the end of the day, all journey together! But for me the next year was more challenging than the previous year. The year of Pharmacology, Pathology and Microbiology! In one sense the beginning of the 2 water shed years, when life is taken a bit more relaxed. (We had a 4 and half year course with 1 years each of 2 nd and 3 rd MBBS, and 1 ½ years of 1 st MBBS.) I had done reasonably well in the 1 st lap of the 4 and half year journey, but the second lap I struggled, mostly in one subject – Pharmacology. I did manage to finish the year without major challenges but did not enjoy the same ! And this was observed by the 2 lady professors we had. I remember both calling me to their room, ...

It was 1978, November. Medical college that should have started by June started only in November. There were cases in the university against the admission that continued for about 5 months. Finally, after this long wait, we were Medical students! In those days there were only 2 professions that was considered worth joining - Medicine and Engineering. And between the two Medicine was the elite one! (That is what we thought). So, it is with great anticipation and joy that we joined toe college. Of course, there was the fear of the ragging. But much to our relief there was a court order that our batch should not be subjected to any ragging and should be protected by police! This was because the previous year, a physical assault during ragging had ended in loss of life of a student and mental breakdown of another! But as we entered the college and the Anatomy dissection halls, and classrooms, we were faced with not too encouraging professors.   Or we felt as if they were not too enco...

A few months back, at the beginning of the epidemic I had in my dreams, dreamt of how leadership should be and written a blog on the same.  https://blogs.icmda.net/2020/03/24/leadership-in-pandemics-six-principles-to-guide-us/ It was with a hope and dream that I will be such a person, and there will be around us, leaders of our nations who will lead from the front. Leaders who will lead with evidence-based strategies, at the same time compassionate, agile, dependant and interdependent!  As the pandemic continues to ravage all our nations without signs of an immediate end, what we see around in the world leadership is far from what I had dreamt! I want to consider a few leadership pictures that we see around in political leadership around us. We see one group of leaders who seem to be “blind” to the context around. In one sense like Ostriches with their head under the sand! For them life goes on as normal, pandemic is just another thing to ignore, and they are busy with their ...