Falling sick in UK?

I was in London last week.

I went to see Pam at her home. Pam had been in the hospital for back pain. Pam told me about her experience in the hospital. She saw the doctors only on the day of her admission. After that for the next two and half weeks, she never saw her house officer.

The British NHS, national health services had such a reputation with people coming from all over to benefit from the British standard of medical care, what has happened to it?

In the night, the news on BBC mentioned a Mr. Gonsalez, who had killed many persons and the court has sentenced to a mandatory prison for life. There was also an interview with the grandmother of Mr. Gonsalez, who explained that if her grandson was guilty, the state was guilty as well. It seems that she had been complaining about the deterioration in the psychological condition of her grandson for months without any response from social services or the psychiatric services. In one of the letters, she even wrote, "Would you do something only when he kills someone?".

In the morning, flying back to Bologna, I saw the headlines in the newspaper, a private hospital in London is "forced to cut 1000 jobs because of lack of funds".

But UK has the most booming economy in Europe, how can this happen there? While rest of Europe is fighting recession, only UK seems to be going strong, then why did they cut their health service so drastically? It sounds more like a government hospital in India.

I am afraid for our health care services in Italy. With all these magic words of greater efficiency, reducing wastage of resources, more autonomy and privatization, the future does not seem very bright for the right to health.

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I have a new Hindi-English-Italian photo-blog, Chayachitrakar. There are mornings, when I don't feel like writing much. It would be simpler to stick in a nice picture and it will be done. That is the logic behind it. I have just one camera, a digital kodak, and I don't know about apertures and time of exposure, etc. I can't even take very sofisticated pictures and I don't like special effects, most of the time. But I think that my pictures have good human angle. May be that is not very modest, but I like the pictures I take!

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In-tubed in London

Once again, I was back in London. Travelling up and down the city in the tube. Saw an ad sticking on the tube wall about "Paternity testing", advising women that if they had any concerns about the paternity of their child, DNA testing is now possible to identify the father. For a company to put an ad of this kind and to invest money on it, it means that there is indeed a market for it and sufficient number of women (and men) are interested in finding out if the child is indeed of that particular man. Seems like a commentary on these times!

I can bet, that such an Ad would never be accepted in India. Anyone stupid enough to put such an ad in a public place, is likely to be prosecuted for corrupting the impressionable public, if not already lynched by angry mobs. In India, we don't have adultery, do we? Or worse, women having multiple partners. It is against our culture!

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In London, they have this nice initiative of putting up poems in the tube. Read a lovely poem by Chamon Hardi there.

I can hear them talking, my children.
Fluent English and broken Kurdish.

And whenever I disagree with them
they will comfort each other by saying
Don't worry about mum, she's kurdish

Will I be the foreigner in my own home.

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In the tube, I saw a man, white and very English, wearing a jacket with a lotus designed on it's pocket, underneath it was written PUNJAB. On both the sleeves of the jacket, there were stripes of the Indian flag. Probably he did not know what the colours of those stripes meant? Indian made jackets are nicer and cheaper. Boys in Punjab, stop asking friends to bring you the jacket from UK, get it from Ludhiana!

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In Europe, only in London, you can get away by carrying an Indian take-away dinner. It's smell is so strong. Yet, no one looks at you in London. The curry restaurents are so common and so full. Found a new Sagar with only vegetarian food including nice dosas on King's street. Yet even this was full - I had to wait to get a table.

Here in Italy, neighbours complain about the strong smells coming from Asian kitchens. May be they need to eat more curries and get used to them!

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I was pushing my camera in through the railing around Buckingham palace to click the picture of the royal guards, when I saw this policeman point at me. Perhaps, he thought that my camera was a gun? Then he walked towards me. I was so tempted to put away my camera and walk away but I forced myself to stand there and continue clicking. He came closer in front of me, bent down and picked a green-coloured paper wrapped around the bottom of the railing, went back to the guard and smilingly put it in his pocket. The guard did not move. Perhaps, it was a message from guard's girl-friend and the policeman was only playing cupid!

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Back to London

Came back yesterday evening from London. I was curious to see if the bombs have changed the city. Yes, almost everyone I asked, agreed that the city has changed, but I couldn't see the changes.

They said, there is no night life, nobody goes out in central London. Perhaps, Hammersmith is too far away from the centre but at 10 PM the restaurants seemed full, people were there in the bar inspite of the typical English rain. Even the tube was full as usual. But the train and tube services seemed to have worsened. Stansted express was a scandal. The publicity is hyperbolic as usual but the train seemed like a local train in Mumbai. Stopped every five minutes. The whole tube system seems to be coming apart at the seams. Bomb scares, maintainance, staff shortage, all the possible problems seem to plague it.

Yet outside on the streets, people were rushing around as usual. Tourists speaking different languges with their cameras clicking furiously seemed unchanged. I walked in the Banks area, and it seemed much nicer than when I was there 10 years ago. There were flowers every where. Sparkling new buildings with strange shapes, futuristic pubs in glasswalled structures, it looked wonderful.

I always stay in the same place. Must have stayed in that hotel for fifty times at least. The old staff knows me very well. It seems to have worsened too. Must be cutting costs. The breakfast is a pale shadow of its past and the timings are restricted. In the room, the hair dryer and pants-pressing machine are both out of order. The telephone does not work too. May be someone else would buy that hotel and improve it? It changes names and owners, the prices increase and services improve, then slowly, every thing comes down. Perhaps, its location is not good so that it does not get enough clients?

I remember the time there when they had found an IRA terrorist staying in that hotel. I had woken up during the night after a noise and switching on the light, I had looked out of the window. The hotel was surrounded by police with guns in their hands. They must have looked at me with amazement, nude with just wearing my undies, standing near the window, lighted from behind! My heart thumping, I had switched off the light and crawled back into the bed, waiting for the guns to start shooting.

Or the time when a car allarm had gone off around 11 PM and gone on and on for 4 hours, till its battery had exhausted. Couldn't believe that in London, there was no police or someone to trace the owner of a car to make it shut up and it had continued to make terrible noise in a thickly populated residential area for four head-aching hours. Worse than all the jagratas combined in Delhi.

This time, there was a fight. It must have been from one of the houses at the back of the hotel. Woke up in the morning listening to the women shouting, "Leave the house, leave, ....leave". Seemed like an old record stuck on the word "leave". At first couldn't hear the man. Then slowly the fight heated. 'Fuck offs' and 'sons of bitches' flew around till the woman started shouting, "Get off me, let me go. I don't want you. Leave me. Let me go now." Then suddenly there was silence. Probably he had strangled her. Or may be, he had picked his things and left. Who knows. Or, may be she had hit his head with a broom. I hope they don't call me as a witness.

My last image of London is that of a banner at the airport. It was the publicity of a bank. "24 hours service. Real people from UK answer you." Means, no Indian call centre here!

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Buskers in London underground

I am developing a cold. And I am back in London.

The underground train to Liverpool station stops every five minutes. "We are sorry for the delays caused by lack of sufficient staff in East London", they announce. Every day they make the same announcements. It sounds as if staff shortage is kind of disease or tsunami, a natural disaster. Perhaps, they are all ill with cold and fever? This is London, the capital of one of the most powerful and rich countries in the world!

I love the buskers in the London underground. They have their regular spaces authorized properly. Wonder if they have to pay for it. My favourite is at Piccadilly. It is always wonderful though I remember with nostalgia, once hearing a busker on saxophone playing Bolero. It gives me goose pimples, just to think of it. As escalators go deep down into bowels of earth, the acoustics are great.

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Ballet in Trafalgar square

I am in London. After the meeting, I went to Piccadilly circus, walked down the Reagent street to Waterloo place, where they have statues of Lord Lawrence, governor of Punjab in 1857, and of the better known Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon. There is an intriguing house there with a golden statue of Athena.

At Trafalgar square I found a big crowd, sitting on the stairs watching a giant screen showing a live broadcast of Royal British Ballet company. It reminded me of going to watch films in Ravindra Rangshala in Delhi. Only my bum has got softer or perhaps it is the age, after a while, my bones seemed to press on the hard stairs, making it difficult to sit. So finally I left it and resumed my walk.

British modern art gallery behind Trafalgar square has lovely red colured boards announcing some exhibition, wonderful as a background to take pictures. Seeing a couple of British policemen (actually policepersons since one of them was a woman), I quickly clicked. I Love taking pictures of uniformed persons.

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