Being a resident in psychiatry is quite a mixed bag of feelings. Though, the mankind has touched most of the celestial bodies in and around our galaxy, the stigma associated with psychiatry refuses to go away easily. On the other hand, probably this is the only clinical branch which makes the patient clinician relationship more humane than just professional.
But this is not the point I want to make. My point is about a country which claims to have rich heritage of culture, tradition and knowledge. A country, that uses camouflage of culture and heritage, when it can’t sustain the stiff challenges faced in the race of development. Yes, it is my country India (Bharat, Hindustan or by whatever name you want to call it).
It was one of those lethargic afternoons, when I went to medicine 303 wards, where I had few patients up for counselling for suicidal attempts. I met this guy Basappa, a small farmer from a nearby village with 1 acre of dry land. All throughout his life, he has seen his father and brothers struggle in that piece of dry land to make ends meet. Ten years ago the baton was passed on to him. He borrowed ten thousand rupees from a local money lending shark to start farming a fresh. With the help of irregular farming, cheating middlemen and irregularities by govt officials his loan had grown 5 times and so were the threats by the goons of money lending savkars. Meanwhile, a rumour of land acquisition by the govt for SEZ was also in the air. Basappa could not see any light at the end of the tunnel and only hope he saw, was in death. He tried to gulp 200 ml of monocrotophos in one go, but he was interrupted by his fellow villagers and was saved. Life post suicidal attempt was an uphill task for Basappa. There was no meaning in going back to that dry strip of land which yielded him nothing but sorrow. Finally, he decides to take up the job of security guard in our hospital and never to go back to agriculture. He lived happily thereafter. But we lost some one forever... “Annadaatha”
As I write this article, hundreds of farmers would have left farming in our country. As per the recent census, there is dip of around 4% in the farmers’ population. Traditionally, our nation’s culture, economy have been woven around agriculture. But in the recent past, farmer has been ignored big time by the govt and by us (the urbanites). Blame it on our apathy or irregular monsoon or haphazardly planned industrialization or the blitz of urban life, every day we are losing around 2000 farmers. Our villages are shrinking. Meanwhile one more weapon of mass destruction (of farmers) in its modified version (land acquisition bill) is waiting to be launched!!
Before eating food, our elders used to fold their hands and pray “Annadaata Sukhibhava”- let the one who has provided me food be happy. But at this point in time saying “Annadaata Sukhibhava” would be cruelly satirical!!
Santiago Maktub
