The Ants Go Marching… Except When They’re Spiders!

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Ants have a surprisingly good public image. School textbooks extoll their industry, teamwork and ability to carry loads many times their own weight. They have inspired management lessons, children’s stories and endless moral tales. Aesop gave us the Ant and the Grasshopper, and the ant has been a role model ever since.

Spiders, on the other hand, have a public relations problem. The popular nursery rhyme has Ms. Muffet running away from her tuffet on sighting one. Their eight legs, multiple eyes and sudden appearances tend to inspire shrieks rather than admiration. Even people who know that most spiders are harmless to humans may prefer not to share a room with one.

Our reactions are not universal, of course, but ants’ visible cooperation makes their achievements easy to appreciate, while spiders’ unfamiliar appearance and hunting habits can make them seem threatening. Humans also have a long cultural history of associating spiders with danger and mystery.

Which makes the ant-mimicking spider a particularly intriguing character. Imagine being a spider in a world where humans admire ants but recoil from you. Why not borrow the ant’s wardrobe?

Nature, of course, is not concerned with human opinion. And that is not the reason why some spiders mimic ants. But evolution has produced some extraordinary impersonators, and these tiny spiders are among its most accomplished.

The art of being somebody else

That ant marching purposefully across a leaf may not be an ant at all. It could be a spider dressed up as one.

This is called myrmecomorphy, from the Greek myrmex, meaning ant. Some spiders have evolved narrow, elongated bodies that resemble an ant’s segmented form. But there is one inconvenient problem: spiders have eight legs, whereas insects, including ants, have six.

The solution is wonderfully ingenious. Some ant-mimicking spiders hold up their front pair of legs and wave them like antennae. They move in jerky, stop-start bursts, rather than with the more familiar gait of a spider. Their body shape and movements together create a convincing illusion. A casual observer who has not stopped to count the legs can be thoroughly taken in.

This disguise can offer protection. Many predators avoid ants because they can bite, sting or deploy chemical defences. By resembling an ant, a spider may persuade a potential predator to look elsewhere. This is a form of mimicry. One particularly well-known example is Myrmaplata plataleoides, which resembles the Asian weaver ant (Oecophylla smaragdina), found in India. Weaver ants are formidable for their size: they have powerful jaws, bite readily when threatened, and can spray formic acid, an irritating chemical, at an attacker. They are also aggressive defenders of their colonies. A predator that has learnt to avoid these ants may hesitate before attacking something that looks like one. The spider’s disguise can therefore offer protection—but it is not foolproof, and the degree of protection depends on which predators encounter it.

The disguise can also help some spiders hunt. Ant-mimicking jumping spiders are active predators with excellent vision, and their appearance and behaviour may help them approach prey without immediately revealing their identity. In nature, impersonation can be both a defensive strategy and a hunting advantage.

Fooled in my own garden?

You do not need to travel to an exotic rainforest to look for these remarkable creatures. Ant-mimicking spiders are found in several parts of India. Studies and observations have recorded them in southern India as well as in regions such as Assam and Jharkhand. Interestingly, they do not all impersonate the same ant. The Asian weaver ant (Oecophylla smaragdina) is one model, while other spiders mimic ants belonging to genera such as Camponotus, Tetraponera and Polyrhachis. The particular disguise varies with the spider species and its habitat. This makes ant mimicry a fascinating example of how evolution produces different solutions to the same challenge: surviving in a world full of predators.

Bengaluru’s gardens, parks, hedges and green spaces provide opportunities to observe spiders and ants in close proximity.

So next time you are watering plants or cleaning your windows (that’s where I sighted mine), look carefully at the ants going about their business. Is one unusually elongated? Does it keep waving its front legs? Does its movement seem just a little different? You may have found an eight-legged impostor among six-legged OGs.

Of course, not every ant-shaped creature is an ant-mimicking spider, and a reliable species identification may require a good photograph or expert examination. But that is part of the pleasure of observing nature: the first answer may not always be the right one.

The next time you see an ant, count the legs before deciding.

–Meena

Johnny Appleseed of the Himalayas: Samuel Stokes

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

In the days before cold storage and “imported” made all kinds of fruits and vegetables available in all seasons, there was a strong seasonal association with these. There were distinct summer fruits, reigned over by King Mango, and bitter karela that matched well with the pungent jamuns in the rainy season. There were the winter favourites ushered in by carrots and peas, and fruits like custard apple and guava.

Growing up in Delhi in those days, for us October was always associated with the Apple season. It was around Dussera time that the Golden Delicious variety of apples made their way from Himachal Pradesh to the markets of the plains. The smooth green crunchy apples had a distinct personality from the red apples from Kashmir. Today these are not easily seen, and not many would even bother to know the difference. An apple is an apple, after all.

The history of apples in Himachal Pradesh is linked with a person whose life and work was a curious journey that took many turns. This was a man who was born in the United States as Samuel Evans Stokes, and died as Satyananda, in the service of the poor in India.

Samuel Stokes was the son of a wealthy American businessman. It was expected that he would continue the family business, but even from his early youth, it was not profit but service that motivated him. This quest led him to join the Christian Quakers religious movement which led him to India as missionary at the age of 22 years. His father initially indulged what he believed was his son’s youthful quest, and even financed his trip.

Stokes arrived in India  in 1904. He began work in a leprosy home in Solan district of Himachal Pradesh. His parents were afraid that he would get leprosy and never return home. Samuel survived, but did not return home.

As he started work with leprosy patients, Samuel realised that he would always be seen as a ‘white outsider’. While he could not change his skin colour, began to dress like the local people and learnt the Pahari dialect so that he could directly communicate. Gradually he integrated with the local community and culture.

In 1912, he fell in love with Benjamin Agnes, a daughter of a first-generation Rajput Christian. Together, they bought a large plot of land in the foothills of the Himalayas and settled there. Harmony Hall became the centre of his new passion–horticulture. However, the poverty of the local people and the need to support them was always on his mind. As Samuel decided to turn to farming and embarked on several experiments in cultivating pear, plum and apples, he began to feel that large-scale fruit growing in the area could help to boost the local economy.

In 1914, Samuel went to America carrying soil samples from his land, and returned with saplings of apples of various varieties that he believed would be suited to the climate and terrain of Himachal. After experimenting with these for a year or two, he found that the Red Delicious variety worked best. Then his mother sent him saplings of the Golden Delicious variety which he added to the mix. While apples were not unknown on the Indian subcontinent, they were mainly grown in Kashmir. The few varieties that grew in Himachal were wild, small, and sour. Once Samuel’s apples were doing well, he started distributing saplings to encourage local farmers to start apple cultivation. They were initially reluctant to replace food crops with fruit which took seven years to yield fruit, but Samuel supported them in the sale and export of the produce as they made the transition. Stokes also built a school for children who worked for him in his orchards in lieu of the fee.

By 1928 apples from Harmony Hall had taken over the Himachal valleys. Samuel also set up a training school for future horticulturists on his estate. Himachal Pradesh officially became the Apple State of India.

Stokes had always fought for the rights of the local labourers in Himachal, and fought against injustice. In the meanwhile, Stokes’ close friendship with CF Andrews led him to Gandhi. The Jallianwala Bagh incident which brutally exposed British violence against people led him to join the freedom movement. He attended the Nagpur session of the Indian National Congress in 1920, and was the only non-Indian signatory to the declaration urging Indians to shun government service. He travelled with Gandhi around the United Provinces to spread the message of swadeshi and soon took to wearing khadi kurtas and churidars, topped with a Gandhi cap. His articles in support of non-cooperation and against British rule led to his arrest for sedition in December 1921. In prison, he protested against the preferential treatment accorded him as a European – he considered himself a British Indian and a Congressman.

Stokes officially gave up politics in 1924 but continued to correspond with Gandhiji. He described himself as more of a philosopher than a politician. He devoted himself to working for the land and the people of Himachal. His own life journey then took a spiritual turn. In a simple conversion ceremony, he embraced Hinduism in 1932, and took the name Satyananda Stokes. His desire to serve remained the guiding principle of his work and life till the very end. He died on 14 May 1946 at the age of 64, and is buried in Kotghar, Shimla.

This season, as we savour the Delicious Apples from Himachal Pradesh, it is a good time to remember Samuel Stokes who can be aptly described as the Johnny Appleseed of the Himalayas.   

–Mamata

 

Went for the Botticelli, Stayed for the Harappan Figurine

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

There are few relationships as universal as that between a mother and her child. Yet the ways in which we imagine, represent and revere motherhood vary enormously across cultures and centuries. This is the idea at the heart of One Mother, Many Mother Tongues, an exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Bengaluru, curated by Naman P. Ahuja and Andrea Anastasio. Bringing together works from India and Italy, the exhibition spans more than two millennia, inviting us to look beyond familiar images of the mother as nurturer and caregiver. Here, motherhood encompasses protection, fertility, sacrifice, regeneration and even ferocious power. The striking juxtaposition of an Italian Renaissance painting with ancient Indian sculptures makes this more than an exhibition about mothers: it is a conversation between civilisations about what the maternal represents.

The star attraction was billed as Botticelli’s Madonna and Child, but honestly, there were so many works more jaw dropping.

The Italian Attraction

Not to diss the Madonna and Child, painted around 1490 by Sandro Botticelli, one of the great masters of the Italian Renaissance. Seeing a work by Botticelli in Bengaluru is an occasion in itself. The painting depicts the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus, a subject that Botticelli returned to repeatedly during his career. As per historians, this is not simply a tender portrait of a mother and baby. Look closely, and the relationship seems weighed with foreknowledge. Mary’s red robe evokes her earthly presence, while her blue veil suggests the celestial. Her expression is melancholy, and her hands appear to be opening rather than clasping the child to herself. The infant, meanwhile, seems to gaze beyond the immediate moment, towards a future that his mother may already understand.

In Christian tradition, the infant Jesus is destined for sacrifice, and the painting can be read as a meditation on a mother’s love shadowed by the loss she must eventually endure. It is an image of motherhood in which love does not mean possession: the mother must ultimately release the child to a purpose larger than herself.

The Harappan Mother and Child

But the most goose-bumpy moment was a small terracotta Mother and Child figurine from the Indus Valley civilisation, dating back to around 2500 BCE, loaned by the National Museum, New Delhi. It is modest in scale and material. Yet its emotional appeal is immediate. The mother cradles her baby. The simple act of holding a child is enough.

We cannot know precisely what the maker intended, whether the figurine had a domestic, ritual or other purpose, or whether it represented a particular deity. But the image does invite us to reflect on the enduring human experience of motherhood. Across the vast gulf of time, a small piece of baked clay brings us face to face with a familiar gesture: the holding of a baby close.

Baby in a Basket

Perhaps the most charmingly matter-of-fact image of motherhood in the exhibition is the small (less than 6 inches high) ivory/bone figure from the Shunga–Kushan period, around the 1st–2nd century CE. A mother carries a basket on her head, with her baby girl (yes, you can make out the sex of the baby on such a tiny figure!) safely tucked inside it. If the detailing of her clothes and jewels is intricate, what I found more intriguing was, why was she carrying the baby in a basket on her head? Where was she going? Again, we have no clue about the situation or the artist’s intentions.

The Yogini: Motherhood Beyond the Human

The exhibition becomes particularly intriguing when it moves beyond the conventional mother-and-child image to the world of Indian goddess traditions. The Yogini tradition, associated with powerful female divinities and Tantric practices, does not always fit neatly into familiar categories of motherhood. One of the works highlighted in the exhibition is Vrishabhayogini, a reminder that these figures are not merely idealised representations of feminine beauty or domestic care. The Yoginis belong to a complex religious and artistic world in which female power can be mysterious, unsettling and difficult to contain within a single definition. Their forms and attributes invite us to think about the sacred feminine as something more expansive than the familiar image of a mother holding a baby.

Beyond the Familiar Mother

The exhibition’s other highlights include ancient Etruscan representations of Mater Matuta, a goddess associated with the protection of children, fertility, dawn and renewal, offer a compelling parallel with Indian mother-goddess traditions. The Buddhist goddess Hariti has an especially remarkable story: once depicted in Buddhist narratives as a demoness who abducted and ate children, she was transformed into a protector of children after the Buddha confronted her with the loss of one of her own. Also striking are the Indian Matrikas, or mother goddesses, and the fierce Chamunda, whose fearsome appearance stands at the opposite end of the spectrum from Botticelli’s sorrowful Madonna. A sculpture of Skandamata, the mother of Skanda, adds another dimension to the many ways maternal divinity has been imagined.

One Mother, Many Mother Tongues succeeds in showing us that motherhood is not one fixed image. It is a multitude of stories, beliefs and artistic expressions, each shaped by its own culture.

The juxtapositioning of mothers across geographies and time helps us to see how the mother-and-child motif travelled through different societies and acquired different meanings. Civilisations may differ in their beliefs and artistic conventions; the human bond between parent and child is enduring.

All in all, a wonderful experience!

–Meena

Karni Bharni: When a Jain Manuscript Turned Karma into Pictures

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

What does karma look like?

It is a difficult question. We can explain karma, discuss it, preach about it and philosophise about it. But how do you actually show it?

Some Jain manuscript makers found an ingenious answer. They turned it into a sequence of pictures: this is what someone did and this is what happened as a consequence. The manuscripts came to be known as Karni Bharni, a phrase meaning “as you do, so you receive”. The Gyan Museum describes them as ‘an illustrated Jain didactic tradition in which actions and their consequences are laid out as a sequence of scenes’. The pictures were important precisely because the argument could be followed even by someone who could not read the accompanying text.

I saw a display of such a book when I visited the Museum of Arts and Photography last week. It is a particularly intriguing subject to encounter around Paryushan, when Jains turn their attention towards self-discipline, reflection, religious study, repentance and forgiveness. At the heart of the festival is the uncomfortable but useful exercise of looking at one’s own actions and their consequences.

Karni Bharni does much the same thing—but instead of asking us to imagine the consequences, it paints them.

These are not quite “picture books” in the modern children’s-book sense. They belong to the long and sophisticated manuscript tradition of Jain communities, particularly in western India. Jain bhandars, or manuscript repositories, preserved texts with remarkable continuity. Their importance goes well beyond religion to contributing to understanding the history of Indian painting, as these are some of the earliest surviving Indian paintings on paper.

And there is something wonderfully practical about the way Karni Bharni works. A page can show an action; another scene shows its result. The sequence does the teaching. The figures are deliberately schematic and punishments quite graphic! Their job is to be recognised and understood.

That makes the manuscripts surprisingly contemporary. We live surrounded by infographics, diagrams, animations and explainer videos because we have discovered that complicated ideas can sometimes be grasped more easily when they are visual. The Jain manuscript maker had much the same insight. Instead of writing several pages explaining the workings of karma, why not show the viewer?

Jain cosmology offered an elaborate universe of different realms, including the human world, celestial worlds and hellish realms. Karni Bharni manuscripts could bring this moral universe alive through images of actions, rewards and punishments. A page might therefore be visually dramatic as well as philosophically serious. Heaven and hell were not distant abstractions; they became places that could be imagined through colour, figures and repeated visual motifs.

The striking thing is that these manuscripts were not produced in isolation. Jain merchants and other patrons supported manuscript production, while scribes and artists developed traditions of copying, illustrating and preserving texts. The result was a remarkable interaction between religion, commerce, scholarship and art. The same Jain communities whose members were active in the world of trade were also among the important custodians of India’s manuscript heritage.

It was particularly appropriate that I saw the manuscript during Paryushan. The festival is not simply about fasting. It is a period of pausing long enough to examine how one has lived. Pratikraman involves reflecting upon transgressions and seeking to repair them; Michchhami Dukkadam, traditionally offered at the end of Paryushan, expresses the wish for forgiveness for harm caused knowingly or unknowingly.

The fundamental question these manuscripts answer is universal. Every parent has told a child that actions have consequences. Every schoolteacher has explained cause and effect. Every society has some version of the idea that what we do eventually comes back to us.

But the Jain manuscript tradition did something more ambitious. It made cause and effect visible.

So, during Paryushan, when the emphasis is on reflection, restraint and forgiveness, there is something rather fitting about looking at these old little books.

They remind us that karma was not always something to be explained in a philosophical lecture. Sometimes it was drawn in ink and colour, one scene after another.

If you would like to see some of this remarkable Jain manuscript tradition for yourself, the Gyan Museum in Jaipur offers a wonderful window into India’s rich heritage of art, manuscripts and material culture. Its collection brings together objects that tell stories not just about religion and art, but about the ways in which knowledge, craftsmanship and cultural traditions have been preserved across generations.

And readers, from us to you: Michchhami Dukkadam!

–Meena

Pic taken at MAP of page from late 19th/early 20th century Kharni Bharni book from Gujarat..

Where Rupee Notes are Born: Happy Birthday Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

I still believe in cash, and a monthly trip to the ATM is an essential part of my routine. When I look at a ₹10  note, it seems to me, it probably has had a far more interesting life than I have. It may have travelled through a vegetable market, an auto-rickshaw, a school canteen and a neighbourhood shop, survived being folded into someone’s pocket, squeezed into a wallet and perhaps even taken through a washing machine.

This is where an organisation most of us have probably never heard of becomes interesting. Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited, or SPMCIL, is the Government of India’s specialist organisation for making many of the physical objects that underpin our monetary and security systems. It took birth as an entity in September 2006, but it inherited production units whose histories go back much further. Today, its responsibilities stretch from banknotes and coins to security paper, security inks, passports, stamps and other highly secure documents. In other words, while most of us think of money as something we earn, spend or save, there is an entire industrial world whose job is to manufacture it safely.

And this is not a small printing operation tucked away somewhere. SPMCIL operates several currency presses–the Currency Note Press at Nashik and the Bank Note Press at Dewas, as well as the India Security Press at Nashik and the Security Printing Press at Hyderabad. It also has four Government Mints, in Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Noida, and the Security Paper Mill at Narmadapuram, besides the Security Ink Factory at Dewas. Each has a very specialised role, because when the product is a banknote, “printing” is really only the visible part of the job.

Consider what goes into making a note difficult to counterfeit. The paper itself is specially manufactured, and the inks are not ordinary printing inks. There are watermarks, security threads, fluorescent features, microprinting, intricate designs, numbering and other security elements, some of which are intended for us to recognise, and others for machines and financial institutions to authenticate. SPMCIL’s Security Paper Mill produced 7,661.61 metric tonnes of security paper in 2024–25, while its Dewas unit produced 601.31 metric tonnes of security inks. Its currency presses produced more than 1.2 crore banknotes in the same year. It also makes passports, stamps, certificates and other documents where authenticity matters. In 2024–25, for example, SPMCIL produced over 1.5 crore passport booklets, including more than a million e-passports, alongside its currency, coin and security-printing work.

The numbers become even more impressive when we step back from the factory and look at India as a whole. At the end of March 2025, there were approximately 1,550.7 crore banknotes in circulation, with a total value of about ₹36.87 lakh crore. That is in addition to coins and the rapidly growing digital forms of money. The ₹500 note dominated by value, accounting for about 86 per cent of the value of banknotes in circulation, while lower denominations such as ₹10 and ₹20 remain important in sheer numbers.

India is preparing to try polymer, or “plastic”, banknotes, beginning with ₹10 and ₹20 denominations. The Government has approved field trials of 200 crore notes altogether, worth ₹3000 crore. The intention is not to banish our familiar paper notes; the polymer notes will initially circulate alongside them, allowing the Reserve Bank of India to see how they survive Indian conditions.

Polymer notes are expected to last considerably longer than conventional cotton-based currency, and that matters particularly for low-value notes that are handled constantly and therefore wear out quickly.

The case for polymer currency becomes particularly interesting when we look at the life of a banknote. Low-denomination paper notes have a relatively short life because they are handled so frequently; internationally, polymer notes have been found to last around 2–4 times as long as conventional paper currency, according to RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra. The actual life of the proposed Indian ₹10 and ₹20 polymer notes, however, will only be established through the planned field trials and their performance under Indian conditions. The scale is substantial: as of November 2024, India had about 2528 crore ₹10 notes and 1370 crore ₹20 notes in circulation — together nearly 3898 crore notes.

At present, when notes return from circulation, the RBI’s Currency Verification and Processing Systems sort them into fit and unfit notes; fit notes are reissued, while soiled or unfit notes are shredded through the Shredding and Briquetting System and compressed into briquettes. The RBI describes this mechanised process as an environmentally preferable alternative to the earlier practice of burning old notes. For the proposed polymer notes, however, there is as yet no publicly declared Indian end-of-life disposal or recycling system. This is an important gap in assessing their environmental credentials: a longer-lasting note could reduce the number of notes that need to be manufactured and destroyed, but the sustainability story would also depend on how the polymer notes are collected and recycled when they finally become unfit for circulation. International experience suggests that polymer notes can be recycled into other plastic products, but India has not yet announced its own specific recycling/disposal arrangements for the proposed notes

Polymer notes may last longer, but they are still made from a synthetic material, so their manufacture and eventual disposal have to be considered carefully. That is one reason a field trial makes sense. A banknote has to survive Indian heat, humidity, dust, monsoon rains, crowded pockets, ATMs, cash-counting machines and the wonderfully creative ways in which Indians manage to fold, crumple, staple and otherwise abuse currency, otherwise, it cannot be justified from a sustainability perspective. The RBI has specifically said that the notes will be tested for their durability and adaptability to Indian conditions before any wider decision is taken.

If polymer notes are introduced, the SPMCIL printing presses will probably remain central, but the Security Paper Mill’s role in those particular denominations would change. The challenge would move partly from making specialised cotton-based banknote paper to acquiring/producing, testing and securely handling a polymer substrate.

So change is in the wind! Hopefully we, including SPMCIL, can all adapt.

–Meena

Patient Observations

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

In the past few months I have had occasion to visit three hospitals, as a patient. A small private hospital, a medium-sized corporate hospital, and a public hospital. Each one had its standard procedures and code of conduct. It was interesting to observe and experience the similarities, and the differences. It was also an opportunity to think about a subject that would not normally feature in my list of ‘explore and discover’ topics.

Perhaps the biggest trail of exploration was triggered by my visit to the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad. Locating the building that we had to reach was the first step. The real eye opener was the sight of hundreds and hundreds of people going and coming, and waiting…One would imagine that such a huge moving population would end up in a railway station-kind of melee with noise, jostling, shoving, and seeming chaos. Here however, there was no unnecessary noise, people (patients as well as their accompanying members) were seated in an orderly fashion on chairs as they awaited their turn to reach one of the several registration desks. This was the first step in what would become the ‘case file’ that would be the key document for their future treatment. This process certainly involved a great deal of filling of forms, and being sent off from section to section to go through the numerous steps required. It was heartening to see that most of the staff were helpful in guiding a large number of people who were from all walks of life, some obviously from distant rural areas who had come here for treatment. This was creditable considering that the continuous stream of people certainly could have tried the patience of a saint. All said and done, things were moving. We too joined the flowing mass of humanity, as we were directed from counter to counter and building to building, over a large part of the day; experiencing how a large part of India’s population encounters the public health system, but also discovering some fascinating facts about the civil hospital.

The Civil Hospital as it is loosely described, is in fact a complex of a number of large medical institutions spread over area of 110 acres in the Asarva area of Ahmedabad. The complex includes facilities for specialized diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitative care starting with the general outpatient department to dedicated institutions providing medical and surgical treatment for specific diseases including cancer, TB, kidney and heart, and dental ailments. The campus also houses the BJ medical college, the Gujarat  Medical Council, Gujarat State Pharmacy Council and Gujarat Nursing Council.

No wonder then that this complex, familiarly called Civil Hospital is Asia’s largest public hospital, and possibly the oldest. It’s unique history and heritage goes back 168 years.

 It origins as an institution can be traced back to 1841 when it started operating from the Collector’s Office. The brick and mortar building of the hospital was constructed in 1858 at a cost of Rs. 96,000. This was an immense sum in those days, and the then colonial government had no role in its funding. But Ahmedabad also has a long history of philanthropy, when the affluent merchants of city contributed generously to public causes. Two prominent citizens Shri Hutheesing and Shri Premabhai were among the key donors for establishing the hospital, along with an Englishman, D. Wyllie, who was the Surgeon General at the time. A block of the hospital was named the Wyllie Ward after him. The objective was to provide free health services, aid and treatment to the people. The Old Civil Hospital was located at the Collector’s Office in Gheekanta. There were 12 wards and rooms for 92 in-patients. A medical school attached to the hospital was started in 1871 with 14 students who were designated as Hospital Assistants. As patients continued stream in, there was a need for expansion of space and facilities. Once again, the philanthropists of the city stepped in. Over the few decades, donations helped to open a Medical College, an eye hospital, outdoor patients section, and construct a maternity unit and women’s and children’s wards. The common people of Ahmedabad also contributed. From funds collected by the public, a well-equipped surgical ward was created; it was named the Mary Lambert Operation Theatre.

Despite these extensions and expansions, the hospital could not meet the huge need and demand for its services. Thus work, funded by the government, began on new premises in the Asarva area, starting in 1952. The New Civil Hospital as it was called shifted here in November 1953. Over the years, the campus has grown and spread to earn its distinction as the largest public hospital in Asia. The New Civil Hospital has more than 2000 beds and 44 wards for indoor patients. Over 1 lakh indoor patients are treated here every year. And over 9 lakh patients avail of the OPD facilities annually. And all treatments and investigations are provided free of charge, or at minimal charges. Mind boggling, to say the least.

No doubt, the system is not without its flaws and issues. And an equal number of stories may be shared about harrowing experiences. But the fact that such a complex of facilities continues to function, where even a common person can avail of medical treatment at minimal cost, is certainly worthy of commendation. Yes, there are crowds, there are long waits, there are points of confusion and frustration. But then, one hears of months-long wait in Britain’s NHS system to get a bed for a routine surgery; and the American system where one needs to wait months before one can get an appointment to see a specialist, or an MRI when quick diagnosis and treatment are of the essence…

In our own quest to be leaders in ‘medical tourism’ today we are seeing an upsurge of huge corporate hospitals springing up. These are bewildering concrete and glass jungles in themselves, where even a critically-ill patient cannot be admitted until the Billing Desk declares them “fit to pay”. Where every breath, and every procedure and pill is billed, and from where it is a challenge to emerge sound in body, mind, and bank balance!

In such greatly changed times, and certainly in the face of huge challenges, it is humbling to know that the Civil Hospital continues to adhere to its original mission of “Providing the best healthcare services to all sections of society at free of cost through unrelenting strategy of motivation, quality improvement, value addition and dedication towards humanity with selflessness.”

–Mamata

A Month for Pain

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

Pain is one of those things we know intimately but understand surprisingly little. We know it when we stub a toe, burn a finger, bite our tongue, pull a muscle or discover that the corner of the coffee table has been lying in wait for our little toe. We know exactly what to say: “Ouch!”

But what exactly is happening when we say it?

September is Pain Awareness Month, an annual campaign dedicated to improving understanding of pain, pain management and the experience of people living with pain. It was established in 2001 and is now marked internationally. This September, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) is particularly focusing on understanding, advocating, partnering and advancing pain science, with 2026 also being its Global Year on Neuropathic Pain.

Which seems like a good time to ask a rather basic question: why does pain hurt?

The body’s alarm system

The old-fashioned explanation was wonderfully simple. Something goes wrong in the body, nerves send a message to the brain, and the brain says: That hurts.

There is some truth in this, but modern pain science has made the story considerably more interesting.

When we touch something dangerously hot or injure ourselves, specialised nerve endings called nociceptors detect potentially damaging stimuli. They send electrical signals through nerves and the spinal cord towards the brain. But pain itself is not simply the signal travelling along a nerve. It is the brain’s interpretation of those signals, influenced by a whole set of factors including context, memory, mood and expectation. This is why pain is both remarkably useful and remarkably complicated.

People born with rare conditions that prevent them from feeling pain demonstrate just how important that unpleasant sensation is. Without the warning system, burns, fractures and other injuries can go unnoticed, sometimes with devastating consequences.

When the alarm refuses to switch off

Acute pain generally has a useful purpose. You injure yourself, the area hurts, the body repairs itself and, eventually, the pain subsides.

But pain does not always follow this tidy script.

It can persist long after an injury has healed, or occur without an obvious injury. Chronic pain can become a problem in its own right, while neuropathic pain arises from damage or disease affecting the somatosensory nervous system. It can feel burning, shooting, electric or stabbing, and can be extraordinarily difficult to treat.

There is another fascinating category: nociplastic pain, in which altered pain processing is involved without clear evidence of ongoing tissue damage or a lesion of the somatosensory system. In other words, pain is not always a faithful reporter standing at the scene of the crime.

But can pain actually be measured?

This is where things get delightfully strange.

If someone tells you their pain is 7 out of 10, what does that really mean? Is your 7 the same as my 7? And is either of us using the same scale as the person who describes childbirth, a broken bone or a paper cut as “about a five”?

Pain is subjective, which makes it notoriously difficult to measure objectively. As an article in National Geographi article explains, scientists still do not have a reliable physiological instrument that can simply be attached to a human being and announce: “Your pain is 6.73.”

Enter Justin O. Schmidt, the American entomologist who apparently looked at the problem and decided that the obvious solution was to get himself stung by lots of insects– more than 150 species.

Schmidt spent decades studying insects and recording the character and intensity of their stings. His work eventually produced the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, a scale from 0 to 4 that ranks the relative pain of insect stings. The honeybee, familiar to many people, scores 2 and became a reference point for comparison. Schmidt also asked other experts to provide their assessments.

The Pain Olympics

At the bottom end are relatively mild stings. Fire ants and paper wasps score 1. Then comes the upper end of the scale. The tarantula hawk wasp, warrior wasp and bullet ant all reach 4. The bullet ant is particularly notorious, and Schmidt’s description of its sting is so dramatic that it sounds less like entomology and more like a rejected line from an action movie.

Schmidt’s descriptions are one of the most entertaining features of the index. He did not merely write “pain = 3.” He attempted to describe what the pain felt like. His yellowjacket entry compares the sensation to a hot, smoky experience involving a cigar. The warrior wasp, at the top of the scale, provoked the wonderfully candid question: “Why did I start this list?”

One can only admire the commitment to science.

Pain is not the same as damage

Schmidt’s work also illustrates something important about pain: the intensity of pain does not necessarily correspond directly to the amount of physical damage caused.

Venom has multiple effects. Some components can trigger intense pain, while others contribute to toxicity and tissue damage. These are related but not identical phenomena. A sting can hurt spectacularly without producing equivalent lasting tissue damage.

There is an evolutionary reason for this. For many stinging insects, the purpose of venom is not necessarily to kill a predator. A predator that survives a painful encounter can learn a valuable lesson: perhaps don’t eat that particular insect again.

As one of the scientists quoted by National Geographic puts it, a painful experience can be more useful as a defence if it leaves the predator alive to remember it.

Which brings us back to us humans.

We tend to think of pain as the enemy. But pain is actually one of the body’s oldest protective systems. It tells us when to withdraw, when to protect an injured part, when something may be wrong and, sometimes, when we need to seek help.

The trouble begins when the alarm becomes the illness itself.

Pain Awareness Month is therefore not simply about telling people that pain exists. It is about recognising that pain is real even when it cannot be seen, that different people can experience the same stimulus differently, and that persistent pain deserves to be understood rather than casually dismissed. IASP’s 2026 campaign puts this neatly into a broader framework of understanding, advocacy, partnership and better care.

And as for the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, there is a final lesson.

You can measure pain comparatively. You can describe it, investigate it and study the biology behind it. But there is still no universal “pain-o-meter” that tells us exactly what another person is feeling.

Perhaps that is why pain requires not only science, but empathy.

And perhaps, when somebody says, “This really hurts,” we should resist the temptation to reply, “It can’t be that bad.”

Unless, of course, they are volunteering to test the bullet ant!

And perhaps we should occasionally thank pain.

Preferably after it has gone away.

–Meena

I Am a Tree

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ 2 Comments

Meena’s recent musings on “her’ guava tree took me back to my early days as an environmental educator. One of our first assignments was to develop a series of worksheets for children which would help to spark curiosity, interest, and appreciation of the natural world. This meant that we ourselves needed to experience what we expected the children to experience. We decided to start small, with a single tree, rather than a forest. The exercise began with our own observations of a single tree.

Over days, as we began to explore the numerous dimensions of a single tree, we got caught up in a fascinating journey of observing, exploring, and discovering. Putting together our notes, and engaging in refreshing discussions, the worksheets and activities for guided observation began to evolve. Preliminary try-outs of these with teachers and students added new dimensions that enriched our own understanding.

One of the unplanned spin-offs from this experience was a poem that I wrote; an attempt to capture the wonderful web of life that a single tree nurtures.

Decades later, the poem about the guava tree evoked many memories, and led me back to these words, penned long ago.

I Am a Tree

I am a tree

so straight and free

all branches and twigs and trunk am i

but i stand alone

bare to the bone

i am a tree

so tall and free

who will come and be with me?

WE are the roots

from us will sprout the shoots

we dig deep and wide

spread out on every side

under the earth we hide

food and water we gather it all

to help the tree stand strong and tall.

WE are the leaves

we dance in the breeze

so many are we, different ones for every tree

some long, some short, some large some small

some yellow, some red, some grow some fall

we cover the branches and twigs like a screen

making a beautiful dress of green

to help the tree to breathe and dine

there’s lots to be done

but for that we need the sun.

WE are the insects

we live on the tree

we crawl, we creep, we hop, we fly

in cracks and hollows, some damp, some dry

we take our fill of fruit and flower

leaf and bark we lay our eggs and spin our webs

if you look hard you’ll see our mark.

WE are the birds of different feathers

we flock to the tree in all kinds of weather

we stitch, or weave, or build our homes

from twigs, on branches, in trunks with holes

we coo, we caw, we chirp, we chatter

we rest, we roost, we flutter, we patter.

WE are the children

we love the tree

in village, in city, town, and country

it gives us shade and fruit for free

it plays with us when we make believe

that we are a squirrel, a hawk, tarzan

up we go on it, one…two…three

look at the world like a monkey.  

A tree i am

so happy and free

so many friends are part of me

they make me a world of colour and sound

we help each other

from sky to ground.

I was a tree

once proud and free

i lived, i grew, i got i gave

some rain i brought, some soil i saved

i was a world for living things.

i am now a stump, just left to dry

cut up for wood. oh, how i cry

a table, a chair, a window, a door, a pencil, a paper, something more

a bonfire has been lit of me.

I that was tree

once tall and free  

While poets continue to wax eloquent about trees, no human can ever create a tree. That is exclusively Nature’s miracle and gift.

Joyce Kilmer reminded us of this in 1913.

   I think that I shall never see

  A poem lovely as a tree.

  Poems are made by fools like me,

  But only God can make a tree.

–Mamata

The Great Guava Heist: Rose-ringed Parakeets, Coppersmith Barbets and a Guava Tree

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

There is a certain amount of drama taking place on my guava tree these days.

The Rose-ringed Parakeets arrive in noisy pairs, settle among the branches and get to work. The Coppersmith Barbets are quieter visitors, but no less interested. Between them, they can make a considerable dent in the morning’s guava harvest.

What puzzles me is what happens next.

Guavas fall to the ground, some barely touched, others with chunks missing. A perfectly good-looking fruit may have a hole in it and be abandoned. Another has been pecked open and left hanging precariously from its stalk. And there is a constant barrage of small fruit pieces from the tree as the parakeets feast.

Why, I wonder, do they throw so much of it down?

Perhaps I am looking at it from entirely the wrong end of the telescope.

The parakeets’ breakfast

Rose-ringed Parakeets are wonderfully equipped for attacking fruit. That large, curved red bill is not just for making an impressive entrance. It is a powerful cutting and gripping tool, and the bird can hold food with its foot while working on it with its bill.

A parakeet may bite into a guava, take several mouthfuls and then move on. It may be looking for the softer, riper flesh, avoiding a harder portion or simply deciding that another fruit looks more attractive.

And when you are sitting in a tree full of guavas, there is little reason to persevere with a disappointing one.

The next guava is only a beak-length away.

Enter the Coppersmith

The Coppersmith Barbet is a very different personality. Smaller, stockier and beautifully marked, it is much less conspicuous than the parakeet. Its name comes from its extraordinarily persistent call, which sounds remarkably like a tiny coppersmith hammering away at metal.

Barbets are fruit-eaters, and a guava is clearly an attractive proposition. They can make a small opening in the fruit and work their way into the flesh, leaving behind something that looks as though a miniature woodworker has been at it.

Watching the two species together makes one thing clear: birds don’t necessarily approach a fruit as a human would.

For us, a guava is one object. For a bird, it is skin, flesh, seeds, texture, ripeness and energy—all of which can be assessed in a matter of seconds.

The tree has its own plan

There is another player in this little drama: the guava tree itself.

The tree has invested energy in producing fruit because fruit is one of the ways plants persuade animals to transport their seeds. The flesh attracts the animal; the seeds get a chance to travel.

A seed that simply falls beneath its parent tree has to compete with that parent for light, water and nutrients. A seed carried elsewhere has a chance of finding a little patch of ground of its own.

Birds are excellent seed couriers because they move from tree to tree and garden to garden. Some seeds pass through their digestive systems; others may simply fall or be carried away with pieces of fruit.

Not every seed will become a tree, of course. Nature is not in the business of giving every seed a happy ending. It works through numbers, chance and a great deal of trial and error.

And then there are the leftovers

The story does not end when a guava falls.

Ants may discover it. Fruit flies certainly might. Beetles and other insects can take advantage of the exposed flesh. Squirrels may investigate. Eventually fungi and bacteria will break it down and return its nutrients to the soil.

The guava tree is therefore feeding a much larger community than the two birds that first attracted my attention.

This is something we often forget when we look at nature through human eyes. We tend to see individual transactions: the bird ate the guava; the rest was left behind.

Nature sees a chain.

Birds have always been opportunists

The same principle can be seen all around us.

Bulbuls peck at berries. Mynas investigate fruit and food scraps. Squirrels take enthusiastic bites from mangoes and guavas. Crows carry food away, tear it apart and sometimes abandon pieces.

Other birds have developed completely different strategies. Woodpeckers drill into wood in search of insects. Kingfishers plunge into water for fish. Bee-eaters catch insects in flight. Sunbirds probe flowers for nectar.

Each has evolved a way of getting the nutrients it needs without spending more energy than necessary.

So perhaps the Rose-ringed Parakeets and Coppersmith Barbets are not being careless at all.

They are simply being birds.

A poem about birds and a guava tree

And then I came across a poem that seemed to have wandered straight into my garden.

In “Birds on the Guava Tree,” A. P. Govindankutty describes waking to the sounds of birds feeding on almost-ripe guavas in the backyard of his home. There is a crow on the mango tree, squirrels nearby and the general soundtrack of an Indian morning.

But the poem takes the observation somewhere beyond birds and fruit. The poet watches the birds and thinks about what nature gives us—and about what human beings do with what they have been given.

His conclusion is particularly lovely.

It is but fair that the birds eat,

Year after year, all the fruits,

Leaving none for me to pluck,

For they do not rob, hoard or trade

Nor do they kill each other

For power or pelf.

Indeed it must be for them

The trees grow on earth,

Flower and bear fruit,

For they never cut them down.

— A. P. Govindankutty, Birds on the Guava Tree

I like the poem because it changes the question.

I began by wondering why the birds were leaving so many guavas on the ground. The poet asks us to look at the relationship between birds and trees in a completely different way.

After all, the guava tree is not really my tree.

The parakeets don’t think so. The barbets certainly don’t. And judging by the insects, squirrels and other visitors who turn up for whatever is left behind, they are not the only ones with a claim on it.

I may continue picking up the fallen guavas.

But the next time I see a Rose-ringed Parakeet tearing into one, or hear the Coppersmith Barbet calling from the branches, I think I shall be a little less possessive.

After all, as Govindankutty reminds us, it is for them that the trees flower and bear fruit!

–Meena

An Ode to Letters

~ millennialmatriarchs ~ Leave a comment

I recently read a book that resonated with me. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans is a novel narrated entirely through letters. The protagonist Sybil is a mother and a grandmother, divorced, retired from a distinguished career in law. Every morning at half-past ten, Sybil Van Antwerp sits down to write letters. Letters to family, letters to friends, even letters to authors whose books she has read, to share her own thoughts on these.  Sybil uses her letters to make sense of the world. And by the end of the novel, it is her letters that unfold the story of her own life.

As a person who has been a letter writer most of my life. And who persisted with writing on real paper with real ink, although by part-necessity, succumbed to emails, much after the rest of the world around, this book was the reiteration of the enduring value of ‘real’ letters.

Coincidentally, just a few days later, I read that in an already-packed Calendar of “Days” there is a day which celebrates the disappearing art of putting pen to paper. World Letter Writing Day is marked on 1 September every year, as a reminder of the appreciation of handwritten correspondence. How ironic, and so sad that people need reminding of this. And yet, there is a new generation that has probably never sat down with a clean sheet of paper, a pen of their choice, and enough time to open their minds and hearts to a loved one. In this day of instant sharing of bullets of information, written in abbreviated code, and shot off with the tip of a finger, what are we losing?

Sybil, in one of her letters to a sceptic who wonders why she still writes each letter by hand explains: You also asked after the meaning of my practice of letter writing, calling it quaint and impractical. Imagine all that you have said to one another, all the commentary you have exchanged with friends over drinks, over the phone with colleagues and distant relatives, all the prattle sent quickly, mindlessly over the email, messages typed into your cellular phone, and really, the sum of this interpersonal communication is the substance of your life, relationships being, as we know by now in our old ages, the meat of our lives, but all of that is gone.  Vanished!

This mode of communication has been replaced by what another member of the letter-writers club describes as “relinquishing the post the envelope, a pen, a slower cerebral whirring, the use of our whole hands and not just the tips of our fingers.”

And yet, even more ironically, although electronic forms of communication have now largely taken over from the handwritten letter, perhaps even Gen Z secretly yearns to receive the kind of letters that their parents and grandparents talk about with nostalgia. A survey discovered that while 64% of people would not sit down and hand write a single letter over the course of a year, 69% said that receiving something handwritten through the post would mean more to them than a text, tweet or Facebook message.

The first ever personal handwritten letter was thought to have been sent by the Persian Queen Atossa in around 500 BC, according to the ancient Greek historian Hellanicus. The popularity of letters as a way of sending messages grew as more people became literate. While the exact contents or physical copy of this letter have not survived, letters as a form of communication have withstood the passage of times. Great authors have not just penned works of literature, they have revealed so many personal facets through hundreds of letters that remain timeless windows into another time, and other ways of seeing the world. Thankfully these letters are preserved today in archives, and several published.

What will remain of the ephemeral messages that today whiz across the virtual skies, and disappear like shooting stars? Where will there be the magical experience of joining someone, perhaps hundreds of years later, to peek into their relationships, their thoughts, and, reading between the lines, imagining the additional unpenned words? How will we be able to trace the contours of their lives, discover the greys on the fringes of the more obvious black and white? How will we experience the serendipitous excitement when we discover the words that suddenly connect their experience with ours, and the uncanny sense of bonding with the author?

For this, we need letters. And we need to be able to access these letters. But first, these letters need to be written.

Simon Garfield shares this angst in his book To the Letter: A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing.

Letters have the power to grant us a larger life. They reveal motivation and deepen understanding. They are evidential. They change lives, and they rewire history. The world once used to run upon their transmission — the lubricant of human interaction and the freefall of ideas, the silent conduit of the worthy and the incidental, the time we were coming for dinner, the account of our marvelous day, the weightiest joys and sorrows of love. It must have seemed impossible that their worth would ever be taken for granted or swept aside. A world without letters would surely be a world without oxygen.

Sybil, in her ruminations reiterates this sentiment:

And yet if one has committed oneself to the page…Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or, a better metaphor, if dated, links of along chain, and even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think the story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?

–Mamata