“A large crowd of people gather here every day,” a social worker told me, pointing to a two-storey building that is now a toddy shop.
There was a banner with a familiar advertisement: Ra Bomu – let’s drink toddy. People were going to and from the building. Pointing to the property annexed to the tavern, the social worker said, it had also been purchased by the proprietor of the toddy business, indicating that the business was very lucrative. “What they drink is of course not real toddy,” the social worker went on to say, “Some fresh toddy is mixed with lots of water and then some pills are mixed with the water which somehow gives the taste of toddy, which is good enough for people to buy it over and over.”
He explained that arrack is no longer affordable, as prices have gone up significantly, so the ordinary folk have turned to a familiar alternative: toddy. The crowds that were going in and out were large enough to be seen from a distance.The social worker said, “Drinking this kind of liquor is harmful to the health of these people and leads to untimely death”. That notwithstanding, he went on to say, the people took the alternative available to them, and as the hard working folk needed some entertainment, this is where they found it.
Then, pointing to a nearby hospital, he said, “In one of the wards of this hospital itself, there are places which breed mosquitoes. The entire ward had to be closed for some time.” Dengue is one of the commonest topics in private conversations. People are preoccupied with this problem and the official media has described it as a ‘vyasanaya’, a disastrous situation. A few days back there was a two hour program aired simultaneously, on all media channels that was devoted to giving various explanations and advice on how to prevent dengue and what to do if they discover that someone had already contacted the illness. It is rare, almost unheard of, for such a program to be aired in that way.
Explaining this situation, the social worker said, “There is a particular juice made with green apples and this juice has now gone out of sale in many places.” It is said, this juice is helpful in improving the blood count of the patients suffering from dengue. He went on to say, “Now a pharmacist receives orders in advance for this juice, so when they get stocks they immediately distribute it to the people who have ordered it, and those who come later are told that the juice is not available.” Then, he said, pengiri thel, (citronella oil) which is used as an ointment to prevent mosquito bites, has also gone up in price. In almost every household, people use such ointments as a precautionary measure.
A friend who has two young children said, the people who suffer the greatest anxiety on this issue are the parents of young children. They are always worried about their children being bitten by this dangerous mosquito. The fear is so much, so that even if a child catches a normal cold or gets a fever, blood tests are done immediately to check whether it is dengue. The price of the particular blood test has also gone up, and the government has intervened to introduce a controlled price, which is Rs. 1,200 per test.
One of the accompanying worries among the people is the heavy fines that are imposed if any mosquito breeding places are found in their premises. This is, of course, a precautionary measure being introduced by the government to impress upon the people the need to take care of their premises more carefully. While no one is opposed to such fines, they are at the same time worried about locations where the mosquitoes may breed.
While the overall efforts to deal with the problem in the best way seem to have improved, many people believe, the efforts taken by the state to eradicate dengue inadequate. The workers who used to come regularly to spray the mosquito repellent – anti-dengue sprays – are not regular, and even when they do come they have to be ‘paid’ to get some work done.
This is another common complaint. One woman said, she pays as much as Rs 300 every month to the Municipal workers to spray her premises, but she found out that the neighbouring premises, which is a Home for Elders, is not being sprayed because there is no one to pay them. She has volunteered to pay that price too so that these elderly people may also have some protection.
The purpose of these little narratives is just to indicate the ways in which people think and express their personal perceptions. It is both, interesting and useful to know how people perceive things and what they talk about, irrespective of whether their perceptions are accurate or not. My purpose here is not to analyze what they say but to record some of the things I have heard.