Just 17 then, she was on a train from Kanpur to Lucknow, chaperoned by her father. There was an interview waiting at the other end, for a diploma course in general nursing and midwifery (GNM). She remembers bits of the idle chatter in that compartment, rather vividly, to this day. Especially the disapproving words of a stray ‘uncleji’ in that motley group—rattling off almost like a high priest’s catechism.
“It’s not a very good job, you know. The girl will be working in a public place... she’ll be required to do night shifts. Why would you allow her do it?” went the unsolicited advice to her father. He could well have been speaking for all society, issuing a statutory warning considered normal within its order. The pyramid of values where one layer of human activity actually holds up the whole structure, but is perennially damned by that very fact—for being too ‘low’.
After 40 years into a career that’s been the central pillar of her life, Urmila can look back at it and laugh. There’s both a gritty pragmatism to her words, and a heroism worn lightly. “It was because I had this job that I was able to raise my two children and send them to a convent,” says the single mother. “We did night shifts. We dealt with HIV patients and Hepatitis B cases, knowing anything could happen to us. When we see COVID-19 patients, it feels we are inches away from death. Whether society recognised our role or not, we kept working silently all through.”
Denne historien er fra May 04, 2020-utgaven av Outlook.
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Denne historien er fra May 04, 2020-utgaven av Outlook.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Trump, Up And Charging
'Many countries are nervous about Donald Trump returning to power, but India is not one of them'
Post and Past the Oil in Azerbaijan
As the UN climate conference takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan traces the history of the hydrocarbon industry through the lens of postage stamps
Bhutto's Nehru Story
Nehru's principle of \"compromise and argument\" remains the only workable formula for South Asian leaders
Breathless on Bachchan
Cédric Dupire's documentary The Real Superstar is an irreverent, experimental archive of Amitabh Bachchan's life and his stardom
The Anaphora to Zeugma of the Queen's English
Shashi Tharoor's book is a logophile's candy shop, full of fun, surprises and insights
The Wind Knocked
THE wind knocked on the door. Hesitantly. Wanting to be let in. It had heard the murmuring of the flames. And knew that there was a fire. The wind sought shelter.
The Way Home
“We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection. Something closed must retain our memories, while leaving them their original value as images. Memories of the outside world will never have the same tonality as those of home and, by recalling these memories, we add to our store of dreams; we are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is perhaps nothing but an expression of a poetry that was lost.”—Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
The War Artist
Cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco is in search of the truths distorted by conventional narratives
Mining Adivasi Votes
If the BJP manages to win Jharkhand, it will be the third mineral-rich state after Odisha and Chhattisgarh that will fall into the party's kitty
Unequal Republic
Political parties make promises of equal represention to women, but patriarchy continues to dominate electoral democracy