A resilience born of 'native intelligence' is apparent in small-town India
Says Viji Venkatesh, speaking from her extensive travels for cancer support in India
My professional world revolves around the intricacies of cities, a realm I strive to demystify for policymakers and the public. While I've been doing this for over a decade, I've always felt uneasy about the ‘expert’ label. It’s not just those with technical degrees who can shed light on urbanisation and the urban experience. I'm often enlightened by the astute observations of poets, writers, and artists on urban themes. I firmly believe that anyone with a curious mind and a sharp intellect can contribute to our understanding of cities if we only make an effort to tap into these insights.
In this spirit, I initiated a conversation with Viji Venkatesh, Region Head of the Max Foundation and Managing Trustee of Friends of Max, which offers patient support to those suffering from chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). Viji Amma, as many of us fondly call her, is a star in her own right, not just for the incredibly difficult work she does in cancer care, but as an author (hear her talk about her book The Dawn of Hope) but also for her recent foray into Malayalam cinema, which won her many accolades.
Since 2015, I’ve followed Viji Amma’s vibrant social media narratives on Instagram and Facebook, where she offers snippets of her extensive travels to raise awareness and funds and to organise support group meetings for CML patients and their caregivers. Fascinated by the length and breadth of her travels, I asked her how she perceives the differences in the outlook of poorer people versus more privileged people, people from smaller or larger cities, and so on. Amma’s response directly questions our preconceived ideas of urbanity and education; it echoes wider concerns that modern urban living may be dissonant with (or offer distractions from) an authentic sense of self.
Viji Amma: Actually, (I find that) people refuse to be defined by their socioeconomic backgrounds. I have found that the more educated, the more privileged background a person comes from, there are more mental blocks. People coming from the interiors, from smaller towns, from villages and belonging to very challenged financial backgrounds have something which I would call ‘native intelligence’. I think, somewhere along the way we lose this in our manufactured lives in the big cities.
There is something within each one of us that is a barometer. We delve deep into it for many reasons. It could be for emotional sustenance or just common-sense guidance. I feel that many of us have lost the capacity to look inwards. We don’t have patience. We are eager to grab whatever is outside because it comes to us or is thrust on us. We will look at anything on the Internet. We will listen to anyone who has anything to say on any platform, and we treat it as vedavaak (the ultimate wisdom). Why have we lost what is within us?
I find that my patients and their caregivers, my clinical coordinators who come from a very different background than ours, are on top of everything. People from the interiors who don’t have the kind of exposure as those living in bigger cities are able to translate their environment better. They are able to put their environment, their struggles to work.
I find a great strength in patients coming from interiors. They don’t use their struggles as a crutch; they build with that. There is a kind of unconditional acceptance, and it's different from a fatalistic attitude, which is why I have learnt so much from the patients I meet in the smaller towns.
A sizeable chunk of India lives in the interstices of the gargantuan metropolis and the sleepy village. Recently, a considerably large body of academic research, including an emerging strain on subaltern urbanisation, has examined these small towns' economic activities and social dynamics. I pushed Amma on whether the ability to dig into native intelligence is obstructed by privilege, a certain type of education, or the pace of life in different places - small towns, metros, villages. She quickly pointed out that comparisons between big and small cities are irrelevant to people in these places. We impose the comparative lens from the outside, which diminishes our ability to truly study or appreciate the qualities of smaller places and ordinary people. Even the proponents of southern urbanism, which evolved as a rebuttal to concepts of city planning that emanated from Western industrialised nations, who urge attention to the particular rather than the general, could not have put it better!
Viji Amma: There are no external factors. A person is a person wherever he is. A person living in Nanded would say, “What do you mean? My city is not small?” Think of Madurai, Bhopal, Cuttack, Mangalore or Manipal. We go there. We call them a small town or a 2-tier city. But people who live there, their lives are full and busy and productive. We saw this in a lot of South Indian cinema. Hindi cinema also briefly brought this out in films like Dev D or Bunty aur Babli. The women and men in these towns are stronger, and they face issues with an open mind.
Even with something like cancer, which is life-altering, life-limiting, and life-threatening, I only see strength in my patients (from these places). Now, I don’t say combat or battle or fight because I’ve never seen cancer in that war frame, that you lose or you win, and even they don’t see it like that. If a person dies after having fought cancer, that doesn’t mean the person has lost anything, no? I see my patients embracing a new normal more easily. They have less baggage.
I was struck by Viji Amma’s description of this kind of resilience that comes from lived experiences. I probed about what could be the enabling factors. Her responses further reinforced how problematic it is to judge people and places from the outside without making an effort to appreciate their intrinsic qualities.
Viji Amma: What I’ve learnt from the people in all the towns and villages I have been to (is that they are) very practical. They know when to let go. I see there’s a joy in them. That joy, I think, comes from gratitude for what they have. There’s no hankering. It may sound very simplistic because they don’t have money and they need to come and access their treatment and medication. I’ve seen how people live. I went to this house in Nanded recently. The size of their house, the tkitche, the shiny vessels on the shelves. (There was) so much pride in the mattresses laid out and the space they offered, not just in the house, but in their hearts. Not just in homes, but even sitting in airports or railway stations or on the bus, you see people. It’s a mirror. How they are dealing with so many kinds of issues.
I wrote this poem after I went to Patna for the first time. People keep dissing Bihar and Biharis- arre, aise log hote hain. But it’s so beautiful. The city is bustling; everybody is so friendly and so knowledgeable. Do you know how many people come for a patient meeting from all over, from Sitamarhi to Gaya? There were 280 people in a meeting in Patna. I said to myself, “Look at this city. I have come here saying I am bringing my energies and knowledge, but do I really think once I go away, this hustle-bustle won’t be there? Of course, the city will be bustling even when I go away from there!”
Finally, I pivoted to concerns about life in India’s metropolitan cities, regarding loneliness and apathy of the “neighbours don’t talk to each other” variety. I’ve been impressed by Chai for Cancer, an amazing Friends of Max fundraising campaign that is founded on the simple idea of families hosting friends for tea. I asked Viji Amma about how she started this and what her experiences tell her about metropolitan society. She spoke about how the comfort of a personalised setting helped people relate to the issue and contribute modestly to the cause.
Viji Amma: What is a cup of chai? It is something that is so ordinary and normal. You can have it with anyone, by yourself, any time of the day, any number of times. We bring cancer into that mahaul. Cancer is all the things chai is not. It is isolating. It brings stigma. It is frightening. It reminds you of mortality, so many things.
‘Chai for Cancer’ came at a time when people were realizing that we had locked ourselves into our homes for too long. We have stopped calling people home. We go and have a coffee at Starbucks instead.
I led the Chai for Cancer initiative by example. People came to our home, and they simply didn’t leave! People who came at 10 AM stayed till evening. Ten years ago, we raised a lakh and a half in one day. That’s a lot! People who came to my home said they wanted to do it in their homes. Their friends took forward the concept. My doctors did it; my friends did it, and my college alumni people took it up. It took a cascading form. People embraced it.
It worked because we made each individual decide what the cup of chai was worth. Every year, my first donors are Azeem, who drives my car, and Rekha, who comes to work in my house. And what they give is something modest. It’s like how the mill workers I interacted with in my first job, earned only Rs. 1500-1800 and they would give 50 rupees for the welfare of the community. Somewhere in my mind, I carried that thought that it’s not about big money.
On the other hand, the reticence of the patient community in large cities, a contrast from smaller towns, is perhaps indicative of a certain sense of emotional disconnection, which requires innovative approaches to bridge.
(In another context), I have found that in the bigger cities, people are shyer. They don’t talk. (With patients), I do the sharing first. I share stuff about my life. I talk about my fears. I am not the patient’s mother, father, sister, brother, lover, wife. I am nobody. I am a sounding board. I find that when I talk about my own insecurities, they get a lot of strength.
You know the drug CML patients take has a side effect. It makes the skin unnaturally fair and gives a butterfly rash on the cheekbones. A lady in Delhi told me how embarrassing and awkward it is. So I showed her the family of warts on my face. She said she had never noticed them, and I said I had never noticed her rashes either. “When I think of you, I think about who you are and your persona,” I told her.
There are many ways to understand the world around us, but our own disciplinary and professional biases often limit us. Conversations like this one push me to question mine. My unease with “expertise” originates equally from many chats with my mom, my No. 1 Superstar, who always tells me how super-specialisation in the medical field, regardless of its advances, is most likely harming human health. In a sense, Viji’s idea of a ‘native intelligence’, which is pragmatic, intrinsic and grounded in a person’s reality, is an interesting lens through which to look at the purpose of knowledge itself. Perhaps we will be better equipped to navigate an increasingly complex world if we are able to retain that self-reflective barometer that holds us to values of humility and authenticity.
Yes!!
Viji! The superstar :)