https://www.scmp.com/rss/328240/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Making a hospital visit fun for an eight-year-old is not easy, but Prasanna Shirol and his wife Sharada know a thing or two about it – after all, they did it multiple times for their daughter, Nidhi, who required enzyme-replacement therapy that involved an infusion of drugs lasting 10 to 12 hours every fortnight. “We never planned day trips to hospitals, we planned dinner nights,” Shirol says. The therapy was a tedious process, but the thought of her post-treatment dinner would keep Nidhi’s... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3123700/rare-disease-day-indian-dad-whose-daughter-suffers-pompe?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3123700/rare-disease-day-indian-dad-whose-daughter-suffers-pompe?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Mar 2021 02:30:13 +0000 For almost 45 years, Satyendra Srivastava’s happiness hinged on the number of words he stammered, or did not, in a day. He celebrated days that would pass without him stammering a single word, and was hard on himself when his speech faltered. When Srivastava, a physician and social worker in India, found his spiritual calling, he realised that as a person he was much more than just his speech. He poured his thoughts into a blog in 2008, which later snowballed into a nationwide community that... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3106397/international-stuttering-awareness-day-tips-living?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3106397/international-stuttering-awareness-day-tips-living?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 21 Oct 2020 11:15:17 +0000 For months now, Anubha Mahajan has been forced to use a coat hanger as a makeshift intravenous drip stand by the side of her bed, to provide some pain relief in lieu of the regular hospital treatment she used to receive to ease her suffering. The 28-year-old resident of Gurugram, in North India’s Haryana state, has been living with complex regional pain syndrome – a rare neurological disorder characterised by intense bouts of agony – for almost seven years now, but since March has been unable to... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3099286/india-coronavirus-pandemic-brings-neglect-women?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3099286/india-coronavirus-pandemic-brings-neglect-women?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 30 Aug 2020 06:00:11 +0000 Yet another consequence of the coronavirus pandemic has been to restrict the access of millions of women in lockdown to their choice of birth control. India is seeing millions of unintended pregnancies – and risky abortions. Zainab Mandlawala will never forget her own experience on a March afternoon in 2018. After waiting for hours, a gynaecologist finally led her into the operating room and numbed her cervix with a local anaesthetic. She then performed a “D&C” – dilation and curettage –... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3096082/helping-hand-listening-ear-abortion-helpline-india-where?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3096082/helping-hand-listening-ear-abortion-helpline-india-where?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 06 Aug 2020 12:45:12 +0000 Sandhya Nair’s favourite childhood memory is of listening to bedtime tales from the woman she called Amma – Hindi for mother. She was a transgender sex worker, and Nair’s next-door neighbour. “Every night, while my mother worked, Amma fed me and told me stories until I drifted off into my dreams,” said the 23-year-old, who grew up in Kamathipura, Mumbai’s largest red-light district. Nair said she thought of Kamathipura as safe. Once, when a man spotted her in the brothel and asked how much it... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3093738/india-sex-workers-children-challenge-taboos-help-needy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3093738/india-sex-workers-children-challenge-taboos-help-needy?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Jul 2020 06:00:26 +0000 About 115km (71 miles) from Mumbai in western India, in a district council school in Devkhop village, eighth grader Archana Vasant Baswat is proud of her steady attendance. It has helped her focus on studies and score well. Until about a year ago, the 14-year-old frequently suffered from skin infections that caused rashes and itching, and sometimes diarrhoea, causing her to miss school. “I didn’t know how critical soap is for maintaining hygiene. We never used it at home,” Baswat says. Her... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3004298/how-hotel-soap-and-hand-washing-lessons-are-saving-lives?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/3004298/how-hotel-soap-and-hand-washing-lessons-are-saving-lives?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 02 Apr 2019 18:00:15 +0000 An hour into the Bollywood film Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, the central character, Sweety, tells her male suitor she is in love with another woman. The inebriated young man is so amused that he cracks up with a loud “What?” Most audience members probably reacted the same way. For Sakshi, a lesbian woman who goes by one name who saw the film in a Mumbai cinema recently, it was a prodigious and emotional moment. “I was watching a woman committing to her love for another woman in a commercial... https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2185824/indias-lgbt-community-hail-bollywood-lesbian-romance-milestone?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/film-tv/article/2185824/indias-lgbt-community-hail-bollywood-lesbian-romance-milestone?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 Feb 2019 02:45:00 +0000 Vikram Gaja, 18, is not taking classes to prepare for exams, or fretting over a career like many urban teenagers in India. Instead, he spends his time teaching hip hop to youngsters in Mumbai’s Dharavi slum, participating in nationwide “dance battles”, and supporting his parents with the income he earns as an instructor. “He is one of the best B-boys [breakdancers] from Dharavi,” says Sunil Rayana, co-owner of SlumGods of Mumbai, a collective of hip-hop artists in the city. This easy-to-build... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/2182463/mumbais-slumdog-millionaire-location-offers-poor?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/2182463/mumbais-slumdog-millionaire-location-offers-poor?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Jan 2019 02:45:45 +0000 It’s a busy Saturday evening for Nabeel C.H., the floor manager at Echoes Koramangala, a multi-cuisine dining space in an upscale Bangalore neighbourhood. All 12 tables in the restaurant are occupied and more people are waiting in the anteroom. Some are reading the feedback left by visitors on tissue paper tacked on a wall. Others are attempting to sign their names using cues from the sign- language keyboard spread over another wall. How khichdi, mix of lentils and rice, became India’s ‘national... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2172785/businesses-india-see-benefits-hiring-staff-speech-and-hearing-impairments?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2172785/businesses-india-see-benefits-hiring-staff-speech-and-hearing-impairments?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 14 Nov 2018 02:45:30 +0000 Eleven years ago, Sohini Boral, a 29-year-old transgender woman, visited a government-run hospital in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata for consultation for a persistent fever. When she joined the women’s queue to buy a token, she was pushed away. The men, too, did not allow her to stand with them. “I was 17, and had just started expressing my femininity by keeping my hair long and wearing women’s clothes and nail polish,” recalls Boral, who now works as a strategic information assistant at... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/2159156/how-can-you-be-raped-doctors-words-transgender-india?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/article/2159156/how-can-you-be-raped-doctors-words-transgender-india?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Aug 2018 02:49:02 +0000