Defending him in adversity
Savita Prem
WOMEN are strange creatures. Ever heard dialogues in Hindi films that go like this: "Tum kis mitti ki bani ho?" "Aurat balidan ka pratik hai!" You must have — a million times at least. And every time such a melodramatic scene is played out, you roll your eyes and say, "Oh no, not again". But it happens again and again and yet again.

Plastic surgery is not just cosmetic, it is corrective too
Teena Singh
PLASTIC surgery is the art of moulding and doctors specialising in it are plastic surgeons. But there is a lot of misconception in the public mind about this art. A lay person invariably looks down upon it as vain because to his mind the only role plastic surgery plays is to enhance beauty.

Pregnant women trek miles to reach doctor
Annu Anand
DEVLI (Tehri Garwal): About 24 km from Mussoorie one of Uttaranchal’s most enchanting hill stations, is the picturesque little town of Dhanaulti. Situated among lush green forests and surrounded by sky kissing mountains, Dhanaulti has a special place on the tourist map.

FROM THE GRASSROOTS
Social taboos hamper women sarpanches
Sandip Das
IN Boswal panchayat of Fatehabad district in Haryana, Hemlata, who is a sarpanch, does not handle her activities, everything is being looked after by her husband. Her husband also conducts the gram sabha meeting, which is most of the time chaired by men—the gram sachiv, the headmaster, sarpanch husband and few male panches.

WOMEN are strange creatures. Ever heard dialogues in Hindi films that go like this: "Tum kis mitti ki bani ho?" "Aurat balidan ka pratik hai!" You must have — a million times at least. And every time such a melodramatic scene is played out, you roll your eyes and say, "Oh no, not again". But it happens again and again and yet again. Why? It’s not merely cinema that has the license to glorify a woman. However much feminists might hate this, across the globe, and not just in ‘poor, undeveloped’ India, where women still tow the footprints of the man, women walk that extra mile to support the man in their lives in his hour of stress or need. Even when he is in the wrong. Whether he is involved in a political scam, an illicit relationship, or caught in a money-making racket, the woman always stands by her man — whatever her personal beliefs of right and wrong may be.

She might rant or rave against the man in her life. She might even want to slaughter him in person. But like a fiercely protective lioness, if an outsider threatens him, she will go to any length to shield him. And as the man finds his way through this quagmire of murky mess, the little woman holds his finger and stays with him till he finds himself on dry land again. Often, it is this pillar of support that finally sees him through. Just what is it about a woman that makes her so resilient to adversity? When the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal was at its worst, the person most affected by the whole sordid affair was his wife, Hillary Clinton. Yet, through the nearly year-long traumatised process, she kept her cool and projected herself as the wife who stood by her husband in his most trying time. Of course, the newspapers were full of reports on the massive rows between them, the hostility in private and how they lived in separate rooms. But whatever happened behind the closed doors of their private quarters, the facade of a strongly united front did not crack for a minute. Obviously, it was not easy.

When Hillary met some press persons in Eygpt, weeks after Bill narrowly escaped being asked to step down as President, the strain that she was undergoing showed on her face. When someone commented on it, she smiled faintly and admitted, "I’m not a good actress. My feelings show on my face." It was probably the first time the First Lady had admitted to being vulnerable. But a stray admission to vulnerability did not weaken her resolve to stand beside her husband.

Later, in her first ever interview since the impeachment, she told Talk Magazine, "I don’t believe in denying things. I believe in working through it." Since the Clintons have stuck together, they obviously have worked it out. Her critics could argue that it suited Hillary to project herself as the sacrificing wife because that loyalty would fuel her own political ambitions. Yet no one can deny her personal humiliation, that was probably greater than any political dream she may nurture. Yet she stood by Clinton.

It would have been easy to imagine such a patibhakt stand from an Indian wife. It’s baffling when the same trait is seen in the rest of the emancipated world. So what makes them stick together?To get back to the most celebrated scandal, sometimes sticking together means that several other considerations have been taken into account. When the Clinton disaster was at its peak, and the man and his missus were barely on talking terms, it directly affected the President. As one of their closest friends told the American Press, "If he had trouble keeping focused, it was because she was no longer part of the equation. She was his most trusted adviser."

Maybe the President went down on bended knees and pleaded with her to stay back. Maybe she did it because it suited her to project an image of the devoted wife who will not let a filthy scandal destroy her life, only because the image will hold her in good stead in her own political ambitions. Whatever the reasons, the First Lady stood by him, thumbing her nose at all those feminists, most of whom had fainted in horror.

Back home, another prime example of wifely loyalty came expectedly from Romi Dev, Kapil’s wife. When the cricketing giant was accused of having feet of clay, he first wept bitterly in front of television cameras and then had a press conference where he lambasted Manoj Prabhakar, the man chiefly responsible for his doom. Through it all, and even now, Romi stands by him. Like an icon of goodwill and devotions that people would have to first move aside before getting to him. In an interview to a Mumbai-based paper, Romi said, referring to his lashing out at Prabhakar, "That’s just like him. He’s a fighter." She added that the family would stick together and get on with life. "Others get on by looking at our life." The repercussions of such a huge accusation which, if it was proved, would have amounted to him being called a traitor and would naturally have affected not just the man but his family too.

Romi had then said, "There’s no time to sit and think. All I know is that I have to hold my life together, my child together, my shop together. I also have to hold the man together. The day he did the interview with Karan Thapar, it was our marriage anniversary. He came back to the office where we were supposed to have lunch together, with his eyes shaded by a sunglass. I didn’t know what had happened. But we were eating lunch, when he broke down again and cried bitterly. It was my worst anniversary."

So why do women, who appear to be sane, just behave so strangely? According to psychologists, it’s because women have a natural instinct to mother and when the man is shown up at his worst, this mothering instinct is at its optimum efficiency. But often when this phase is over and things are back to normal, the woman expects the man to bend over with gratitude. When he doesn’t behave as expected, there are fireworks and often this is the most trying period in a marriage. If there are cracks earlier, this is when they really widen into chasms.

This does not happen always though. Sometimes it’s just the opposite. Take Sanjay Dutt and Rhea Pillai for instance. Sanju and Rhea were just very good friends to begin with. Then Sanju was put in the docks with a TADA case slammed on him. At that time, he was supposedly seeing Madhuri Dixit. But the minute the going got tough, the lady swiftly and completely eased out of the scene.

It was during this period, when he was at his lowest ebb, that Rhea stood like a rock behind him. Not that she went about town mouthing big-time support statements, but her quiet immovable position next to him was perhaps more effective than any tom-tomming would have been. Funnily enough, this is one relationship that only strengthened with time.

Not everybody is as lucky. When Salman Rushdie had a fatwa slammed on him for all these years, his wife couldn’t bear the constant terror of her husband living with a death warrant on him. So, instead of staying with him through the trying period, she walked out on him and the marriage. But that is an exception.

Back home, when Rajan Pillai was jailed and tried, a number of his so-called close friends lurked in their closets instead of coming out and supporting him. Pillai was an industrialist. He had high-powered friends in the most important political and business circles of the country. Yet, none of these friends came to his rescue. He may have been a criminal, but even before any of this was proved, he died in police custody because of wrong treatment. Through the entire trauma, it was only his wife Nina who stood by him, rock-like and fought to the last — running from pillar to post trying to get him out.

Of course, post his death, all those friends came scuttling out and projected Nina as some kind of heroine for sticking to her husband. Today, Nina Pillai is amongst Mumbai’s top 10 socialites, who are also writing columns in newspapers.

The examples of strong, individualistic women standing by their man are plenty. When Admiral Vishnu Bhagat was unceremoniously ousted by Defence Minister George Fernandes, he didn’t have to say a word in his defence. His wife, Niloufer, did all the talking for him. A vociferous advocate, she spewed venom and let the world know that according to her, it was political vendetta and personal grudge that was being targeted at her husband. He was innocent. With such a valiant fighter at home, all Bhagat had to do was smile and look pretty into the camera.

Then there’s the famous Rabri Devi-Laloo Prasad case. Like a king who has been unfairly exiled, Laloo bequeathed his throne to wife Rabri before going to jail. And Rabri too managed like a champion. Dusting off the flour from her hair and clothes, she exchanged the rolling pin with the political baton and wielded it with aplomb.

Even as the crime rate in Bihar progresses unthwarted, Rabri Devi’s support to her husband remains unshaken. Who can question the support of a woman who agreed to have her first-born named Misa just because her husband wanted her to be a reminder of the terrible time of MISA?

But, irony apart, it’s always the woman whose immovable support helps the man withstand heavy stress. And strangely, this works.

In fact, that’s what the bottomline is. Families that stick together, stay together. Sometimes so glued together, that it creates some kind of psychological pressure on public minds and memory. Very soon they are willing to forgive, forget and move on till they find another deviant from the norm and later discover his loyal wife! INFS

PLASTIC surgery is the art of moulding and doctors specialising in it are plastic surgeons. But there is a lot of misconception in the public mind about this art. A lay person invariably looks down upon it as vain because to his mind the only role plastic surgery plays is to enhance beauty. And the popular perception is that it is mostly women who resort to cosmetic surgery.

The blame for this limited and misplaced perception of plastic surgery goes to the much-written about Bollywood stars, who undergo this process for purely frivolous cosmetic reasons. Who doesn’t know of Dev Anand and Amitabh Bachchan’s facelifts or Madhuri and Raveena’s rhinoplasties (nose jobs) or fat suctions?

But a plastic surgeon of City Beautiful, Dr Kaplesh, sets the misconceptions right and points out that this kind of surgery has a more positive function like correcting facial deformities. "A large number of men also go through cosmetic surgery. Their number could equal that of the women who opt for it. But the cases of cosmetic surgery form only a small percentage. The maximum cases being taken up are for corrective surgery."

Exploding the myth about this practice, he says, "The most common problem is lack of knowledge amongst the masses regarding plastic surgery, which is usually thought of as cosmetic surgery. There is an urgent need for people to be educated regarding various defects by birth that can so easily be corrected by plastic surgery, if a doctor is contacted in time. This can save the affected people a lot of mental and emotional trauma, that sometimes results in complexes and irrational human action."

The most common problematic cases plastic surgeons encounter are those of a cleft lip (cut lip) and prognathism (the lower jaw pronounced and upfront with the upper set of teeth inwards). Along with a plastic surgeon the services of an orthodontist and speech therapist are required to correct these deformities. The problems of cleft lip and prognathism are hereditary.

A rare, but extremely delibitating, case that Dr Kaplesh and orthodontist Dr Munjal are handling is that of Shashi, a girl from Patna. I came across her when I visited the orthodontist recently. I had never seen anyone like this. She was suffering from a rarest of rare kind of deformity called hemi-facial hypertrophy. In this kind of deformity, for no explainable reason, during the growing years, till the age of 18, a certain part of the face starts growing at an accelerated rate, resulting in disproportionate growth and abnormal features. After innumerable surgeries failed to fully correct the deformity, Shashi came to Chandigarh for treatment.

From this incident I realised that it is important to understand the corrective role of plastic surgery, with the help of which a deformity can be put right with the help of doctors in four to five years. But it is more important to realise that we need to treat a person having a facial or cosmetic deformity with extra love, care and understanding. We need to give them hope.

Looking at such acute deformities, I wonder why people blame God for a slightly crooked nose, a bald head, a flabby stomach or breast size. True, people can today improve upon God-given features and fulfil their dream for a perfect face or body, but plastic surgery is meant more for those who suffer from unfortunate birth deformities, accidents and burn injuries.

In the ultimate analysis, God is the best artist. Without any substantial reason, it is wrong to mess with nature, with God-given features.

One must learn to live with harmless imperfections. But at the same time, those suffering from debilitating imperfections should be aware that there is hope for them in the form of plastic surgery.

DEVLI (Tehri Garwal): About 24 km from Mussoorie one of Uttaranchal’s most enchanting hill stations, is the picturesque little town of Dhanaulti. Situated among lush green forests and surrounded by sky kissing mountains, Dhanaulti has a special place on the tourist map. There is nothing that the place lacks in the name of comfort. High altitude seems to have ensured for it a high level of luxury too. But villages like Divali, Chandaukhi Khaniri and Dande ki Beli, located just 2 km to 6 km down the valley, have not seen even the ‘D’ of development. All these villages form part of the village assembly of Dande ki Beli. But the entire area lacks any kind of roadway. Narrow, zig-zag pathways created after clearning the mountains are the only way of reaching these villages.

Going down 2 km over uneven, narrow path in four hours, one comes across a skinny woman called Bindra who is feeding fodder to her cattle. Thirty-year-old Bindra has lost two children in childbirth’. She was married when she was only 18. Two years after the wedding, she had a son but he survived for only one month. Next year, she again gave birth to a girl child, but she too could barely survive for one month. Now her only dream in life is to be the mother of a healthy child. But this dream will probably remain a dream for her because she has been told by doctors in Dehra Dun that quack medication and inexperienced hands at childbirth have resulted in a shift in the position of her uterus.

Says a sad Bindra, "Having been born in the mountains, we will have to live with all this. Who will come here to treat the patients? If you are ill you will have to bear the consequences also."

Bindra’s father, 50-year-old Commander Singh, informs that there is a government clinic in Dhanaulti but in case of need nothing is available there also.

Commander’s family survives on the vegetables that it grows on a piece of land just outside the house. The vegetables are laden on to mules and then taken up to Dhanaulti. After cutting fodder, feeding it to cattle, collecting wood from the jungle, arranging for drinking water and cooking the food, the women here have to depend solely on kitchen remedies for whatever big or small ailment that they may have.

Kundana Devi, 67, says that all the childbirths in this area take place at home. The elder women of the village perform this job. At times the help of a midwife is also taken. Neither the child nor the mother is ever given any kind of injection.

Pointing towards her five grandchildren, aged between two and eight, she says none of them was ever given any injection.

According to Sona Devi, children here are born in God’s name and in God’s name do they grow up.

In case of a difficult pregnancy one has to go to a hospital either in Dehra Dun or Mussoorie. That calls for an expenditure of at least Rs 7,000-8,000 which is often unaffordable. To go to a hospital one has to first walk over risky terrain till Dhanaulti and from there catch a bus which comes just once a day. So many infants thus die in their mother’s womb.

There is a sub-medical center in Dhanaulti, which is meant for villages from Devali to Dande ki Beli and even beyond, but in the absence of any form of a connecting road none of the villagers is ever able to reach there and neither are the nurses able to reach the villages.

Traversing a distance of 10 km from here one reaches Uniyal, which comes under Tehri district of the Garhwal region. There are 120 families living here in Saklana Patti. Inside a mud house, one meets 25-year-old Madhu, who, with her two-day old baby, is lying in the corner of a dark room. The whole room is full of smoke emanating from the Chulha. Eyes start burning and then watering because of the smoke as soon as one enters the room. But amidst the claustrophobia, Madhu is busy trying to nurse her child. Her mother-in-law is worried whether even this grandson of hers would be able to survive or not.

Madhu has so far given birth to two children, but neither lived beyond a month. She does not know the reason. Neither Madhu nor her child were immunised. To get a shot of injection we have to travel 7 km to Satya village, says Madhu. The bus goes there but just once a day. Hence, most of the time one has to just walk the entire distance. No nurse ever visits the village.

An educated (till class XII) Mira Uniyal, who has come here to her mother house from old Tehri says that the problem is not just in Uniyal village. All the 40-42 villages of Saklana Patti, are suffering due to lack of medical facilities. The primary health centre is 7 km away. Government nurses do not go to the villages. Till sometime back, there was not even a trained midwife in the village. Private nurses take a fee for delivery. Tehri Mira has a nurse near her house who charges Rs 500 for a delivery and Rs 20 for checkup.

About 30 km from Mussoorie, all the villages that fall midway to the famous Sarkanda Devi, are facing the scarcity of not just water, electricity and schools but also medical facilities. These villages of the Tehri region are miles away from the Safe Motherhood Programme of the government. The Government is supposed to be spending lakhs and crores on schemes which entail registration of pregnant women, providing them nutritious food and inoculating the children, but in reality the exact opposite is happening. Children are not just being born the old way, they are also surviving the old way. A medical centre is at least six hours from many of the villages. But even after reaching there what one gets is iron capsules or sundry tablets for select ailments. In cases of emergency, pregnant women or ill people have to be lifted on cots or mules till Dhanaulti, from where a bus has to be boarded to cover a distance of 22 km till the Mussoorie hospital.

The situation is better in villages which are connected by road. But here too childbirth is mostly a home affair. A Rural Child Health (RCH) programme had begun in this region in 1997 with the aim of providing pre and post-natal medical facilities so that the mother could be assisted in delivering a healthy child through safe and healthy method.

B.S. Negi, a retired government official residing 4 km away from Uniyal in Majhgaon, says that Saklana Patti has but one health centre and one ayurvedic dispensary. The nearest hospital is 60-70 km away. Nowhere here is a facility available for check-up of the ailing. Numerous women and newborns keep dying everyday, of which there is no record in government files.

Health officials in the Tehri region blame the paucity of facilities on staff shortage.

But the foremost thing that the women of the hills need for a healthy life is roads connecting them with the rest of the world. What also needed are mobile dispensaries which can penetrate far-flung areas and provide help where it is most needed.

FROM THE GRASSROOTS
Social taboos hamper women sarpanches
Sandip Das

IN Boswal panchayat of Fatehabad district in Haryana, Hemlata, who is a sarpanch, does not handle her activities, everything is being looked after by her husband. Her husband also conducts the gram sabha meeting, which is most of the time chaired by men—the gram sachiv, the headmaster, sarpanch husband and few male panches. Because of the rigid social structure, women’s participation in panchayats continues to be minimum or negligible, a recent study on the functioning of the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) in Haryana has revealed.

The study says that women in Haryana face both institutional and structural impediments. Besides feudal and patriarchal values, they also face panchayat secretaries (often males) who, along with other government functionaries at the block level, feel ‘uncomfortable’ in dealing with women leaders.

Besides the low participation of women and Dalits, factors such as lack of financial autonomy, tied funds and low awareness about the rights and powers of panchayats continue to hamper the smooth functioning of the PRIs in Haryana, says a study by Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA). The study title ‘State of Panchayati Raj Institutions in Haryana (1995-2001), says that the devolutions of political powers in the PRIs in Haryana was not accompanied by complete devolution of financial power.

For example, during 1997-98, the Kalaka gram panchayat in Rewari district was allocated a sum of Rs 2,30,000 for starting a fishery project in the panchayat pond. However, the Rewari block could spend only Rs 57,000 and the grant lapsed. The lack or absence of coordination between two forms of governance — block/district administration and the PRIs —was evident in this case. As a local NGO activist said, "PRIs are allocated responsibilities of development while complete power is not vested to them."

In the Tatarpur gram panchayat of Rewari district in Haryana, the panches found themselves totally powerless in the matter relating to 16 line departments. They were surprised to find that funds allocated to the panchayat were actually spent by the block office, which was clueless about the specific grant details. Ironically, Article-243 (g) of the 73rd Amendment Act of the Constitution provides local self-government institutions to take up the responsibility of preparation of plans for economic development and social justice. Panchayats were entrusted with powers to levy taxes, fees and augment their own resources to meet developmental needs. In most cases, the panchayats do not exercise the power to generate their own revenues, thus making themselves increasingly dependent on government funding. "There is a tendency on the part of government officials to supersede the panchayats," admits Suraj Bhan Kajal, chairman of the Haryana State Finance Commission.

Generally, panchayat meetings focused on factors of infrastructure development such as drinking water facilities, primary healthcare, electrification, construction of roads and bridges, various centrally sponsored schemes like the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, Indira Awas Yojna and planning and implementation of schemes and programmes. Under the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, 1994, the gram panchayat should have four subcommittees — social justice committee, amenities committee, production committee and executive committee. However, the study by PRIA says that most of the panchayats have not formed such committees and most of the sarpanches are not aware of the fact that the formation of such committees is statutory.

Haryana needs to learn from the experiences of the other states such as Rajasthan and West Bengal. Rajasthan was the first state in the country to replace the gram sabhas with ward sabhas. "The effort is to narrowcast the procedures to enable service to all those who live below the poverty line through ward sabha and the ward sabha will be the forum for all future rural development," a senior Rajasthan government official said. According to the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj (amendment) Ordinance, 2000, ‘Every ward of the panchayat shall have a ward sabha consisting of all voters of the ward in a panchayat circle and there shall be at least two meetings of the ward sabha every year.’

In Madhya Pradesh, the Panchayati Raj Act has made it mandatory to convene gram sabha meetings four times a year, while West Bengal has established the system of gram sansad (equivalent to gram sabha at the ward level) to guide and advise the gram panchayat with regard to schemes for economic development and social justice. According to the West Bengal Panchayat Act, every resolution adopted in a meeting of a gram sansad is to be considered by the panchayat and the decisions and actions of the panchayat on the resolutions are reported to the gram sansad.

Under the Orissa Panchayati Raj Act, there is a provision for palli sabha. Palli is a small hamlet in a revenue village. The palli sabha is expected to meet once in February to recommend development programmes and annual budget estimates for the year for consideration by the gram panchayat.

However, the PRIA also reveals that despite the rigid social structure, on several occasions, women have contributed effectively in taking up development activities in their respective panchayats. Urmila Yadav, a sarpanch in Kosli village, has successfully removed the encroachment on panchayat land for building a market complex by securing a soft loan. After the shopping complex was built, the panchayat rented out shops, which generates regular income. Sona Devi, an illiterate Dalit sarpanch from a Haryana village, did not know much about the panchayati system prior to her election. She stood for the election because the seat was reserved. After becoming sarpanch, Sona Devi learnt to read and write and she has ensured that a proper road is constructed in her area and safe drinking water is provided. These success stories are expected to inspire many women in Haryana to come into the public arena.

—Grassroots Feature Network