In the Bonesetter’s waiting room by Aarathi Prasad

In the Bonesetter’s waiting room by Aarathi Prasad

BureauUpdated: Thursday, May 30, 2019, 01:33 PM IST
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In The Bonesetter’s Wiating Room

Author: Aarathi Prasad

Publisher: Profile Books

Pages: 214

Price: Rs 499

From the slums of Dharavi where squalor and human resilience coexist in all its awesomeness and inexplicability, to the swanky structures that reek of ostentation in nearby-BKC; from the quiet dedication of the practitioners of Ayurveda and Siddha (in Kerala and elsewhere), to the equally selfless care of patients who pay according-to-their-capacity in multi-speciality establishments in Bangalore, and the innovative handling of the tribals of Gadchiroli; from watching the hereditary skills of bonesetters in Hyderabad, to observing thousands of asthmatics acquiescing to livefish slithering down their throats,and not to forget the ophthalmological wonders in suburban Delhi, Aarati Prasad has seen them all.

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Like a latter day Fa Hien (Faxian), she has reported on a veritable pilgrimage (who but a pilgrim would wade through ankle-deep water risking Leptospirosis and other diseases) across India, across systems of medicine that are at once mutually competitive and complementary. It is also a pilgrimage because, among other things that interested the author, her grandfather was an Ayurveda practitioner, who, soon after Independence, was appointed secretary to the committee set up to make recommendations on the synthesis of Western with Ayurvedic and Unani medicine. (Incidentally, if the grandfather was Dr. Ram Nath Chopra, then he was chairman of the committee).

The Chopra Committee was followed by a series of committees (Bhore, Dave, Ramalingaswami et al.) showing the extent of interest the Govt of India has in the proposed synthesis.  That being the position at the level of governmental policy-making, it is interesting (pleasantly so) to find at the ground level, that the honest practitioners of our traditional systems are aware of the uses of modern (allopathic) equipment such as the stethoscope, X-Rays and MRI – and of course, surgery – and they recommend accordingly. This indicates a pragmatic approach, a fusion of ancient traditions with modern technology, of something that seems to be irreconcilable at the intellectual levels. It is also interesting (though depressing) to find that the thread that seems to pass through all of the author’s stories is the almost-institutionalised neglect of, and domestic violence towards, women in India – a state of affairs that both the perpetrators and the victims seem to accept as a way of life.

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So from the pathetic conditions of government-owned facilities in the context of established masculine rights to alcoholic excesses and abandoned morals, arise organisations like S.N.E.H.A. in Dharavi, A.S.H.A. and S.E.A.R.C.H.in Gadchiroli, and “Project Prakash” in Delhi – and a host of others whose stories have not yet been told.The context is also not so simple. There is also the preponderant aspect of economics. Children who are blind, for instance, are admitted in special schools with boarding facilities.  The parents fear that if these children are treated by say, Project Prakash, and they regain their sight – they will lose their chances of proper education.

There is however a note of caution that the reader needs to discern. The author says (though in a very positive sense) that AYUSH continues to flourish, sustained by word of mouth, accessibility and even recently a process of re-orientalisation. What the portion in supplied-italics means, ominously, is that our own systems are being brought back to us from abroad with a “western” packaging – and then we try to make out that it was always “ours”. So Yoga becomes a mere series of asanas, physical exercises that have little or no link with the mind.

Solutions need to be found, says the author, towards the end of the book under review. The major “situation” that she finds is the absence of a unified government programme or state regulations; insufficient or ill-considered (culturally or contextually) public health measures; a backdrop of poor nutrition and living conditions, gender based discrimination; lack of excess to education; inadequate uptake of vaccination programmes and always a deficit of trained medical staff where they are needed most.

About the last point, Prasad points out that the doctor- to-patient ratio in rural India is 1:100,000; in addition to this we have the “brain drain” where we 25000 Indian doctors in the UK and 47000 in the US. It is heartening to note that many of those who remain in the country have become powerful catalysts for change. This book, among several other things, is a tribute to those unsung heroes. Lucid in her expressions, even when she gets into medico-technical details, she breezes through the objective descriptions of traditional practices with equal ease as she does the allopathic; there is no sense of superiority of one and deprecation of the other. The bonesetter (whom we meet only after half-way through the book!) and the devi-based illnesses and doctors are treated with equal respect as the multi-speciality hospitals and their doctors.  Each experience is as edifying to the author as it is to the reader.

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