A Winter in India

We had an interesting Thanksgiving Day. Shortly after arriving at the Dental School, we heard lots of yelling and chanting outside, and looked out our window. Our office is on the third floor, almost above the front door of the school. There, just below our window was a protest demonstration. They were there for a while, then walked completely around the building and came back for a series of speeches and cheerleading by some very professional sounding organizer. Lots of rhythmic clapping and chanted slogans, all in Hindi, so we don’t know exactly what they were saying, but it was plainly angry. The Dental College has been named a Center of Excellence, and while we would consider this a good thing, the staff of the college are threatened by this “privatization”. There is a more general move toward privatization of the government-run hospitals here and there is concern that that will deny patients access to care. The Dean is adamant that there is to be no change in access, but that “politicians” are stirring up the staff. Meanwhile the faculty and the students were at work as usual.

It was maybe 200 people, but as you can see from the photo on the left, there were onlookers at the edges. The interesting twist on all this is that Dave had hoped to be helping to develop a dental hygiene curriculum here. It has been clear since we got here that the Dean does not want him to do that, but we hadn’t been told why. Turns out it’s the dental hygienists that are among the most active participants in these protests. Out of ten hygienists, only two are actually clinicians. The others have various “administrative” jobs like inventory control, accompanying students on the Community Dental van, etc. They have been on strike three mornings this week.

Promptly at noon, the whole thing broke up, and people went back to work. I gave my lecture on HIV/AIDS to the 3rd and 4th year dental students (and explained to them what the Thanksgiving Holiday is in the U.S.), and then we headed back to our apartment.

Cooking at our apartment is a bit like camping. We have a two-burner propane stove, but no oven. So we couldn’t even consider roasting a turkey, and I don’t think we could have found one anyways. So, we walked down the street to the Intercontinental Hotel and had a lovely dinner at the Thai restaurant on the 28th floor. We missed all of you very much.