Madhumita Roy, Author at Adamas University

#HumanitiesNext: Medical/Health Humanities: Emergence and Popularization of a New Avenue of Research

The sudden outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic has led to a paradigmatic shift in our lives, perspective, and thought process. It has led us to think, to plan, to fashion our lives differently. Social distancing, work from home, digital learning, webinars and even web concerts have become our new normal. Actually, we are on the verge of transition from where our life will eventually take a new turn.

As we are trying to adjust our coexistence with an unknown and unforeseen virus, I am quite sure that most of us have begun to take interests in the recent research and development regarding the availability of corona vaccine in the market. Nowadays, the discourse of disease and its cure is not confined within medical practitioners. Today, everyone is curious about the symptoms of corona, its prospective treatments and eagerly waiting for the vaccine to come. It’s our body after all!

Literature has absorbed several disciplines like a sponge. War, pandemic, city under siege, science, astronomy, geographical expedition, politics, religion, economics─almost all arenas have left their imprint in the corpus of works which we, the students of literature, get to learn. Who knew that the apparently innocent nursery rhyme “Ring-a-ring-o’ Roses” actually refers to the Great Plague, which severely affected the population of England in 1665? The two World Wars have given rise to some of the memorable war poetry like “Strange Meeting” by Wilfred Owen or “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke.

During Renaissance, the period when modern science took its birth in Europe, natural scientists were also known as experimental philosophers. Science was considered as a crucial aspect of the new learning/humanism. The thinkers of Renaissance Europe were not used to compartmentalize disciplines and were always guided by an association of ideas. For example, many of us are not aware that the creator of the Mona Lisa, that is, Leonardo da Vinci, was also an expert in mechanics and hydraulics. Copernicus, the man who projected the idea of heliocentric model of universe, also studied law and medicine.

With the emerging trends of interdisciplinary approach nowadays, there is a tendency to revive the long lost tradition, which was based on the association of ideas. The CBCS curriculum of English literature not only focuses on literary texts but also includes significant components of culture studies. Consequently, a student of literature learns to critically consider all aspects of life and develop his/her own insight. If we look at the repository of MPhil and PhD works available today, we will find that a student with literature background is working on interesting areas like Autobiographical writings of scientists, Life Writings of Tea Planters, History and Philosophy of Science, for which he/she has to step into the core areas of several other disciplines.

Medical Humanities: Definition

Recent situation has inculcated academic and research interest of several aspirant researchers towards medical humanities. Now, what is medical humanities? The simplest definition would be that which brings arts and humanities within the domain of medicine and healthcare. Thomas R. Cole, Ronald A. Carson, and Nathan S. Carlin in their work Medical Humanities: An Introduction attempts to define medical humanities as, “medical humanities as an inter- and multidisciplinary field that explores contexts, experiences, and critical and conceptual issues in medicine and health care, while supporting professional identity formation”. It emerged chiefly as a response to “dehumanizing tendencies” and commercializing of health care system” resulted due to enormous success of modern medicine. Needless to say, its chief purpose is to educate medical professionals and instill some kind of ethics/moral values/sensitivity in them. It directly addresses the patient’s right to know his/her body, the issue of public trust, the concerns of medical pedagogy and other such issues.

Medical Humanities: Relevance in present day

It has developed as a new area of research to anyone who is interested in various nuances of the discourse of health, disease and recovery.
This interdisciplinary approach is extremely significant for medical practitioners
It addresses the issue of isolation and dehumanization in health sector and thus tries to create a sympathetic community comprising of medical professionals and patients

Medical Humanities: Recent Imprint in Academia

I have recently come across a call for papers in the website of a reputed journal that has invited articles in several sub areas like Graphic medicine, Narrative medicine, Health and politics, Ethics of caring and nursing, Digital health humanities and so on. This call for papers whetted my curiosity and after a rigorous search in web, I have found several books and noted journals on medical/health humanities that have been publishing critical articles on medicine and medical education. A pertinent question has also been raised. Can Health/Medical humanities be included within medical pedagogy? If so, in what way would it leave its impact on the ethics of medical professionals? I am quite sure that in near future there will be a corpus of research works in this area, which would dwell upon the dialogic interaction between art, literature, philosophy and medicine.

Eat to Live or Live to Eat: Reflections on Food Narratives

Let’s begin this piece of writing with a scene that occurs in a popular Bengali movie, Golpo Holeo Sotti (1966) directed by Tapan Sinha. The movie offers us a glimpse of a Bengali middle class joint family, which remains constantly perturbed with innumerable problems. Anyway, that is a different issue. For the time being, I would like to draw your attention to the sooty, dingy kitchen space of this household, where two wives are striving hard to finish off their cooking. They have to serve their husbands before they leave for their respective workstations. These women are disgusted with their daily confinement in the claustrophobic kitchen space. They despise their daily monotonous household chores which otherwise remain unacknowledged. They always remain irritated with their position in the house. This scenario changes completely with the arrival of a man named Dhananjoy who exemplifies how cooking can be an act of pleasure and thus, seeks to transform the perspective of these women towards cooking.

From a tangential reference to cooking as an art in the scenario of Bengali films like Golpo Holeo Sotti, there is a shift in films like Machher Jhol (2017) directed by Pratim D. Gupta where cooking occupies the centre stage. The film depicts the return of a culinary expert based in Paris to his ailing mother in Kolkata only to experience the toughest challenge in his entire career. His mother asks him to prepare an authentic machher jhol for her. The story and its twist entirely depend on the chef’s numerous experiments with machher jhol, and eventually his relationship with his family improves. Moreover, it is interesting to watch the evolution of the kitchen space and the slow movement of food from a topic of casual, peripheral interest to one of serious discourse.

These two significant films rooted in two different time-frames act as crucial pointers to our understanding of the evolution of the discourse of food, food history and anthropology through which any kind of narrative on the culinary tradition of a community becomes a significant gateway to acquire knowledge about its socio cultural past. The first anthology that comes to my mind is The Landour Cookbook (2001), a compilation of long lost recipes of the bakers at Landour (a cosy cantonment area near Mussoorie), edited by Ruskin Bond and Ganesh Saili. The book is not like any other recipe book. What is intriguing is that it contains a brief history of Landour when it was the “headquarter of the American missionary community in India, for about 100 years (1850 to 1950)” (Introduction 1). To add to that, the recipes, collected in the book, still bear the names of their owners. If you sift through its pages, you will come across some lip smacking recipes like Mrs. Strickler’s Chocolate Cake or Elma Hill’s Quick Cake. Nonetheless, it is not only the food, but also the names that would whet your appetite. Apart from the regular glossy cookbooks, that have a considerable amount of readership in the market, there is a repertoire of researched works on food history and anthropology, that deal with the interrelationship between food and various other discourses like colonialism, modernity and so on. Utsa Ray’s Culinary Culture in Colonial India (2015) serves as a significant instance that concentrates on the transmission and appropriation of several ingredients and recipes from the West in the social context of nineteenth century India, specifically Bengal. There is another category of works, which has also emerged and gained prominence. It is known by Food memoir. Madhur Jaffery recounts her childhood days in a fascinating food memoir, Climbing the Mango Trees (2005) where she very clearly depicts how each of her family recipes entails a story concerning the history, customs, rituals and even belief system of the family. As she tries to recreate her childhood days, her taste memory helps her recapitulating those less frequented alleys.

With the gradual intervention of social networking sites in our daily lives, food photographers and food bloggers have furthered the glamorization of food, foodies, and all people related to the art of preparing and consuming food (yes, you heard it right, consumption of food, to make it simple, eating is also an art!!!). Some of us, who are facebook or insta addicts, do not miss single opportunity to update pictures of food and often live videos of cooking. Who knew before that a simple meal consisting of dal, bhat and alu posto (you don’t need to google for alu posto; it’s a popular dish among Bengalis, an explanation will spoil the sport. If you are really curious, you have to taste it) could fetch almost hundred likes?

A few months back I came across a book called Korma, Kheer and Kismet (2014) by Pamela Timms, a Scotttish journalist whose blog Eat and Dust is a treat to one’s eyes. Pamela has chiefly talked about the variety of cuisines available in Old Delhi. Her picturesque writing dwells on vivid details about exotic dishes like Daulat ki Chaat or Mr. Naseem’s Sheer Khurma, which, I believe, are completely unknown to most of us.

For most of these bloggers, researchers and even the celebrity chefs like Ranveer Brar or Vineet Bhatia who host a number of food and travel shows (to name a few, Ranveer’s Himalayas: The Offbeat or Vineet’s Twist of Taste), food involves very precious, delicate, and subtle experience. You cook something; you lap it up, but the taste, the visual remains with you forever. Your taste memory often conjures up a host of other images; you associate a particular dish with a person who is no more or a place where you ventured at distant past. Food brings with it a legacy of taste and cooking that we often inherit from our ancestors (there is always a nostalgic yearning for mother’s magical touch) and pass it on to the generations to come.

Further Reading:

Pamela Timms. Korma, Kheer & Kismet. New Delhi: Aleph, 2014.

Ruskin Bond & Ganesh Saili, ed, The Landour Cookbook. New Delhi: Roli Books, 2001.

Madhur Jaffrey. Climbing the Mango Trees. London: Ebury Publishers, 2005.

Reading A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh: An antidote to Depression

Have you ever been to Hundred Acre Wood or Neverland? I am sure these places were your favourite haunts at some point of time in your life. We all have abandoned our secret lairs and grown up. If all of a sudden, life comes to a standstill? When the entire world is succumbing under the threat of losing a battle, when every moment we are struggling for our existence against an unknown virus, when it is becoming extremely challenging to retain our mental strength, it is undeniable that we need to reopen that magic box where we have so far locked our childhood.

Literature, especially children’s literature, has a therapeutic effect on our mind. If the heavy burden of prolonged lockdown is trying to knock you down, take a sneak peek to the magical world of Pooh bear who stays in Hundred Acre wood with his wonderful companions like Piglet, Tigger, Owl, Eeyore. Together they constitute a topsy-turvy world, something that stays beyond our much-calculated life. Pooh is a bear with little intelligence, yet he is compassionate. There is an episode where Eeyore is sad. He thinks no one cares for him. No one even remembers his birthday. Hearing this, Pooh plans a surprise birthday party for his/her (there has been a much controversy regarding Pooh’s gender, Well Pooh is Pooh!) friend. There is a deliberate attempt on the part of the writer to show that Pooh’s community is a well- knitted one where they always cherish their unity. The way Pooh and Piglet together overcome their fear of a Heffalump (an imaginary creature that only appears in Pooh’s dream) is hilarious yet worthy to remember. Pooh’s world may not be guided by reason and logic, yet it treasures some kind of sensitivity.

The books concerning life and adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh are remarkable creation by the English author A.A. Milne and the illustrator E. H. Shepard. Quite interestingly, both of them served in World Wars. Milne created this magical world of Pooh Bear for his son Christopher Robin who incidentally happens to be the chief character in Pooh narratives. Robin’s original stuffed toys were the inspiration behind Milne’s creation of Pooh and other characters. Apart from being a father’s gift to his only child, Pooh signifies something more. The four books of Pooh appear between 1924-1928, the interim period between two great Wars. The collaboration of Milne and Shepard, who had witnessed the devastating impact of war, results in a deliberate portrayal of an alternative world where everything, that appears as a threat in our real life including battle with an unforeseen enemy (Like Heffalump) is reduced to mere caricature. This alternative world lacks any structured linguistic pattern. None of the characters can spell “Happy Birthday” properly. On Eeyore’s birthday gift, Owl, after repeated attempts, manages to write “Hipy Papy Btuthdth”. This temporary rejection of reality by Milne and Shepard probably acted as an antidote to their fits of depression. Who knows?

Learning and teaching children’s literature is really challenging where each text demands constant engagement with its context. For example if I were to teach Winnie-the-Pooh, I would like to consider several crucial factors:

Written in early twenties, what did the Author and the Illustrator want to imply while jointly working on characters like Pooh, Piglet or Tigger?
Why, in most cases, the child becomes a participant observer in the world of fantasy? We can take the case of Christopher Robin, Wendy in Peter Pan, and Alice in Alice in Wonderland?
A work of children’s literature is often deceptive. Under the veneer of magic and fantasy, the author always cloaks his critique/satire of his contemporary time.
There lies another pertinent question. Digital era has obviously structured a child’s perception differently. Victorian or early twentieth century construction of the child used to differ completely from now. Still, why and how these texts have retained their popularity? It is true that Pooh continues to exist in animations, film adaptations, as high priced loveable stuffed toys and more handy key rings. But, the more important reason behind Pooh’s sustenance is the Christopher Robin in each one of us. In our tough times, we really need a Pooh Bear’s shoulder to lean on.

Much Have I Travelled in the days of Corona!

In these days of confinement, how I long to travel! Travelling is a kind of de-stressing activity that revamps our wearied souls so that it can easily bear the onslaughts of life again and again. Anyway, in this critical situation, when social distancing and home confinement are being constantly stressed upon, travelling has become practically impossible. Consequences are even direr for people associated with tourism industry. A recent news has perturbed me. Treebo employees have lost their jobs. As an enthusiastic traveller, I mostly depend on online sites for my travel itineraries. As I had a sneak peak at this news, I felt a sense of uneasiness. Travelling is going to be an uncomfortable word for a next few months, I think.

Home confinement has taught us many things. If earlier you preferred to order from Swiggy or Zomato, now you have become a cooking enthusiast. Earlier you had no time for books. Now you have befriended those long forgotten compatriots. If you are a teacher, you can enjoy interactive sessions with your students through innumerable digital apps. If you are a traveller, you can easily master the art of exploring nooks and crannies of this world without moving an inch from your house. And, how’s that possible? Why? There are innumerable travelogues and city memoirs, Dervla Murphy’s On a Shoestring to Coorg, Parimal Bhattacharya’s Darjeeling, Ganesh Saili’s Mussoorie Medley that would enliven your solitary moments at home.

Today, all of a sudden I flipped through the pages of Parimal Bhattacharya’s city memoir, Darjeeling. It’s an exquisite documentation of the city, it’s history, it’s landmarks as well as the less frequented corners of Darjeeling. The author shows how the place itself ceases to be a mere geographical territory and becomes a narrative itself. The book rejuvenates my memory of Darjeeling. The place has many things to offer. Beneath the decked Mall road, the city whispers it’s lost glory. The worn out interiors of the Gymkhana club, and St Andrews smell of their grim financial condition. Those good old days of Darjeeling with the scantily populated Mall Chowrasta are only visible in the display of the famous Das Studio. Amidst the heterogenous crowd loitering, screeming, bargaining, and demanding for North Indian, South Indian, Bengali cuisine, and what not, the sophisticated colonial era of Darjeeling seems to be lost. To my utter dismay, I have found that the famous Shangri la’s kitchen doesn’t serve Tibetan Shapale, but the menu consists of North Indian naans and kulchas. I too share the author’s nostalgic yearning for the past. Still the charm of Darjeeling, the cold, the pines, the steaming coffee, the visible tracks of Toy train, the remnants of the past, the Windamere altogether create magic for me.

I was so engrossed in reading that for some moment I felt I was on the terrace of Keventer’s on a bright sunny morning enjoying the bustle and din of the city. At times, I love crowd. The crowd of travellers, the crowd of enthusiastic students in my university campus, crowd of devotees waiting on the ghat of the Ganges to watch the Aarti in Banaras, the crowd of school going girls thronging before the vendor selling pani puri during recess. Every crowd symbolizes life and vitality.

Well, in these days of Covid 19, it is true that most of us cannot enjoy the things we love most. But you know, we can still retain our positivity and will power. Believe in yourself and people around you. Don’t lose hope or get depressed. Spend time with your family. Engage yourself in little creative ventures. My University has given me several opportunities to remain connected with my students through online classes. So, I mostly try to keep myself occupied. Believe me, it’s therapeutic also. Grab your favourite books, watch movies and if possible try to revisit those long lost days of childhood. You will certainly feel better.