A box of letters, all several pages long. Letters from my father, my friends...a couple of them from my grandfather, written in a script I'm still pretty much alien to. Some photographs, of roadside picnics and me climbing trees. A photograph of my mother...black and white and somewhat yellow...the pigtailed girl in the picture looks nothing like Maa, except for her super curly hair and her impish smile, both of which have remained the same. A pocket phonebook with alphebetical tabs, contacts that have confined themselves to the phonebook,but vanished otherwise. My slam book (I wonder whether my ten year old facebook savvy niece has ever heard of a slam book) from high school...the pages bear testimony to our fervent attempts at being "cool." Friendship bands tumble out in a tangle of fibres and colours, and I fail to remember who tied which one. My "School Captain" badge, rusty and worn. The dupatta from my uniform, crumpled and spotty and yellowed...scribbled all over...parting notes from people I won't meet for years to come. An email printout I still remember every word of...a single blue earring, the other one of the pair lost in the jumble of time. And I realise it's no point trying to look for it anymore after all.
"Sister, when will the Doctor be here?", asked a middle aged man. I turned from my examination table, where I was examining a six year old boy, and replied, " I am the doctor, how can I help you?". The man looked at me doubtfully - I was in a salwar kameez with my stethoscope around my neck - and repeated - " No but Sister, I need my child to be seen by a Doctor Sir". This is only one of the many incidents that I- as well as most of my young female colleagues at work- go through on a daily basis. Young female doctors get mistaken for nurses all the time, although the nursing staff always has a specific uniform. The young male doctors, however, do not encounter any such confusion. I have no idea whether I can label this as casual sexism or pure ignorance, but people across social and economic spectrums tend to address female doctors as "Sister" as opposed to "Madam". The men, however, get to be "Sir" throughout. S...
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