Chennai Corner

Wall Of Shame
The wall in Uthapuram village in Madurai district, part of which was finally demolished this week after nearly 20 years of dividing the upper castes from the Dalits is not the only reason we need to feel ashamed. Untouchability is rampant in the state-- ironically speeding down the IT highway with exports this year projected at Rs 25,000 crores (up from Rs 20,700 crores last year and Rs 14,400 crores the year before that.)

According to P Sampath, organiser, Untouchability Abolition Front, a study of 47 villages in Madurai district revealed that 45 of them practiced untouchability in different ways. In Andarkottaram and Thaniamangalam villages, the postman does not come calling. Dalits are expected to go to the post office to collect their mail. Barbers and dhobis don't encourageDalits as customers, community halls and street taps are off bounds for Dalits and they are not allowed to enter temples.

And the two-tumbler system, seen even in parts of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, has spawned seven different ways of being practiced. Talk of innovation! There's the small dot put on the tumbler served toDalits only and in a worse manifestation, some Dalits are given tea in coconut shells. Environmentalists may applaud the latter practice, if only because the villagers here are saying no to plastic,now if only the underlying reason was so noble!

What A Cop Out
Dr Prateep V Philip is an inspector general of police in TN. Most would think if untouchability is rampant despite cops, he is not your man to try to eradicate this practice. But last May, heorganised what he calls "Social Justice Tea Parties" and the awareness led to more people registering complaints of discrimination in 2007. "From 851 cases in 2006, it wentup to 1359 cases in 2007," he says.

The concept was to organize interactive sessions in panchayats to get all the villagers together at a local tea shop. "We served every participant a cup of tea and two biscuits. The results were amazing," he gushes. According to him, 12 police districts and Coimbatore city have been declared free of the double tumbler system after 600 tea parties last year. But Sampath says that the rate of conviction under the Prevention of Atrocities Act is less than 10 per cent. Adds Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi legislator D Ravikumar, "This kind of initiative will not work. Instead the government should form a committee of social activists to identify the places where two-tumbler system is prevalent to bring about a change in mindset."

But the government is backing the police initiative. The success has led to the state and central government agreeing to chip in for this year's tea parties--38,000 are planned in 12,600-odd village panchayats.

A Scrawl Could Start A Brawl
As children all of us had it dinned into us that a good handwriting was the way to go. But many of us have forgotten the years of practice we had in trying to keep the alphabets in the square of the checked notebooks our parents bought us so thatour scrawl would not spillover. Apparently a judicial magistrate in Thiruvallur district forgot the lessons he learnt at his mother's knee and the result was anguish and amusement in a room at the high court.

Radha of Ulunthai village, a government employee and a father of two children, was accused of abducting a 21-year-old girl. A habeas corpus petition was filed by her father in the Madras high court before a division bench comprising Justice D Murugesan and Justice V Periyakaruppiah. They both could not read the order pronounced by the judicial magistrate because of the illegible handwriting. The order was passed around the court to all thelawyers present, but no one could decipher what was written in green ink.

The court was amused but at the end of it, Radha found his bail bond cancelled and his arrest ordered by the division bench. As an advocate put it, "The order was no better than an ECG report."

Physcian Heal Thy Handwriting
Now doctors certainly top the list of those whose handwriting is notoriously bad. Doctors in America have medical transcription experts sitting at some BPO in India to circumvent the effects of their badhandwriting (although pronunciation can also cause problems, says a friend in Bangalore whose medical knowledge has increased vastly since she started work in the booming medical transcription industry).

But with cases piling up in consumer courts here because of wrong medication, doctors need to heal their handwriting. Chemists often find themselves scratching their heads over prescriptions because Arkamine (given for blood pressure) looks like Artamine (given for rheumatoid arthritis), Fludac (given for depression) looks likeFluanc (an anti-fungal) or Anxit (for anxiety) that seems like Axhit (prescribed for malaria). What is also a problem is that in some cases, doctors'don't know how to spell either. Then there are problems because decimal points are not decipherable with the result that a0.1 mg dosage could read like 1 mg. Sometimes conscientious chemists call up doctors to confirm prescriptions.But what if they are too busy to do so, which should be often considering footfalls in pharmacies are veryhigh?

Here's Dr MGR Medical University vice-chancellor Dr Meer Mustafa Hussai's prescription to doctors:"It's only attitude. Even at medical colleges, students should be taught to write legibly. Professors should nothesitate to ask students to write even in a four rule notebook when they find the handwriting shabby."