Healthy way forward

Reading about Swine Flu and H1N1 every day has made me ponder on diseases and then communicable diseases. Cannot help but feel the reason that India performs poorly against Communicable diseases has most to do with its society and the social culture. India ranks amongst one of the worst in the world when it comes to checking the spread of communicable diseases. Staying in Pune, the swine flu capital of the nation has made me take all sorts of precautions and heed to what not every day.

Not caring about others comes very naturally to us. Unless someone is your relative or friend, there is no responsibility towards that person. Even the great Indian culture does not teach anything about strangers too (there could be some random texts which are always forgotten).

Waste management:

The clumsiness, untidiness, waste on roads, social areas, public places is a perfect example. All we wanna do is keep our (narrow) surroundings safe and that is it. And don’t be mistaken, it is never an honest mistake.

Poor record against communicable diseases:

People regularly go out and teach their children to go out even while sick. Cough and cold are just not considered disease enough. You could see as much as around 10-15% of crowd at social places sick. This has apparently become one of the major reasons India has one of the worst health facilities in the world.

Rumors:

Then, we love to spread rumors, every day, every moment. There’s a severe lack of social responsibility all around. Information floats on a needless basis. We never care if any of what we talk or spread spreads myths or panic.

After all, we use our government as a scapegoat and run away ourselves. It is time we identify the pillars of social->healthcare->hygiene pyramids and start acting responsibly ourselves. We need a major upliftment in our societal (and cultural, too) psyche.

Are we even ready to change?