CMC - Day Seven

Indians must be among the greatest consumers of printed news in the world. This morning on my way to work I passed a news agent. His stand consists of a rusty bicycle covered in daily newspapers. You can't imagine how he gets all of the newspapers and magazines to fit on this bicycle and I don't even know how to describe it. I will say that, in addition to the various weekly news magazines, mini-tabloids, lifestyle magazines and horoscopes, he had on display twenty different daily newspapers. And these are just the morning editions. There are three in English - The Indian Express, The Hindu Times, and (my favorite) The Deccan Chronicle - several in Tamil, a few in Malayalam and some that appear to be in Bengali. My comparitive alphabet skills are not great so i could be wrong about the numbers and languages of a few of them. Click here for an online version of one of them: http://www.andhrabhoomi.net/ Either way, there are lots of papers in several languages and, while relatively thin papers (during the week), it's a lot of news to go around. And lots of paper. This particular news agent has a stand that is one of hundreds across this small city, one of thousands across the state, and one of probably more than a million across the country. The Indians take their news very seriously.

Having only read the English dailies, i can speak knowledgably about their content only. Usually, it starts of with the big local or regional news, is followed by the national news, then the Op-Ed pages. The Indian public seems to relish political commentary and the Op-Ed pages are my favorite to read. On most days, they will also syndicate essays from the op-ed writers at the New York Times. These days, the pages are wet with criticism of the Bush administration and current American diplomatic strategies (an unfortunate few upon which to comment). The Op-Ed pages are followed by International news, then business, then sports. The "sports" section is really the "cricket" section and, unfortunately, one can learn very little about this confusing game from the thousands of words that go into the daily analyses of what teams and their players are up to. In this section one also finds the Soduku puzzle, which has become its own sport in India. Aside from the cricket, their papers are not so different from our own.

Until you get to the extra sections. I think the Indians must have inherited their love of celebrity gossip from the English, the difference being that all the celebrities in India are film (say "filim") stars. Since i arrived the biggest news has been the impending marriage of Aishwayai Rai, a bollywood starlet, and Abhishek Bachchan, son of Bollywood's biggest star, Amitabh Bachchan. This is a major affair and the press seem to be following it more closely than just about anything else. Anyway, there seem to be hundreds of Bollywood stars and each day brings new interviews with actors old and new. Accompanying these pages are often write-in columns for teens, which reveal the changing face of Indian courtship. "Nandu the Nerd" is my favorite. These are from this weeks column:

Q. I am an 18-year-old boy in love with a girl. The problem is that we both belong to different religions. I want to marry her, is this possible? Ajay

A. The questions you should be asking are, 'Does she love me?' and 'Will she want to date me now to begin with?' At 18 you really have to be thick to be thinking about marriage. No youngster with a happening life and smart head will be thinking about lifelong commitments and other boring stuff at your age.

Q. I have been going out with my boyfriend for four years now. Recently when I brought up the topic of marriage he said he couldn't marry me due to his family. After that we just say hi and bye to each other when we meet. But we can't forget each other, what should I do? Soniya

A. What's with the marriage bug that is infecting you guys? Do you have no self-respect? This guy doesn't love you, usually when matters of the heart are concerned things like family aren't taken into consideration. There is zero passion from his side, so quit playing the tragedy queen and get a life.

Perhaps it is only the English newspapers that reveal a side of love with which few, although more and more, Indians are familiar. "Law marriages", as they are called, are those that are not arranged by parents. That is, they happen more or less like marriages in the west. Young Indians must tread carefully though in this matter as the potential consequences of a badly perceived coupling are tragic. Last week I read of two distant cousins who had fallen in love. Their family, aware of their feelings, disapproving of their relationship, and fearful of its (karmic? practical?) consequences, conspired to steal them from their homes, torture them, kill them, chop them into pieces and then set them on fire in a ditch. Tradition, Religion, Caste: these are still major players in Indian love

The classified are different from our own in that most include several pages of "matrimonials," a modern twist on the ancient practice of arranged marriage. They tend to emphasize education, family members education, and religion. Two examples:

30 year old Hindu Indian Resident of Caste Hindu-Jat: "She is a very smart, very talented and very intelligent girl. She is working as advocate, interior designer and vastu fengshui consultate side by side she is studying M.B.A. too. We are looking for Class 1 officer, Doctor, Architect, IT Professional, or a Advocate having well established practive in delhi courts."

28 year old Hindu Kerala Iyer girl: "We are looking for an alliance for our elder daughter. She is an innocent divorcee with no encumbrance and her marriage was not consummated. She is very beautiful, fair, intelligent, god fearing, family oriented with traditional values. We are looking for professionally qualified & wellplaced Iyer boys preferably located at Bangalore, god fearing, caring and understanding and with respect for family values."

Fortunately, in addition to being great consumers of newsprint, they are also great recyclers, although not in the way you would imagine. Yesterday i left work and stopped at the large bicycle cart of a man selling bananas. I purchased my bananas and he pulled out a large perfectly torn section of newspaper and with it wrapped my bananas, using a string to tie it all up.. My next stop was the pharmacy: i left not two minutes later with a new bottle of face wash wrapped, you guessed it, in another perfectly torn piece of newspaper. Hungry for a snack i stopped at another street stall and picked up a samosa, wrapped in newspaper. On my way to my final stop, the laundry, i passed a seller of freshly roasted peanuts served in cones of newspaper. I picked up my two freshly pressed shirts, folded around appropriately sized and torn newspaper, and my trousers. All of it was folded and tucked in yet more newspaper. Had i not stopped them, all of these paper-wrapped items would have ended up inside a little plastic bag as well. One would be tempted to conclude that all of this newsprint exists to more neatly wrap up the other transactions of daily living.

So, what does this all have to do with medicine? Very little. But it has much to do with health, to which all these cultural idiosyncracies contribute.

Not an exciting day on the wards. Wish i'd had a newspaper to read.

justin

ps. The young boy with the liver failure, about whom i wrote yesterday, was both more alert and interactive today.