Arm Chair Revolutionaries ...

The arm chair Che Guevaras have woken up in India. With the media hype surrounding the swine flu pandemic, the papers are full of articles of how bad the health care system in India is. These are your revolutionaries who will go to any length lambasting the system without giving you one viable solution. This particular article that really ticked me off was in the "Mint". In the half page article, he mentions 3 incidents where he had to get a test done and how ill informed the people in the hospital were. I thought to myself, "Einstein, we don't need you to tell us that .. The whole world is trying to figure it out". I read a few of these in the last couple of days and pondered over what could I do ? Not much really other than keep my children safe at home, take precautions and avoid panic. In whatever state our health care is, its not the time to get compared to Singapore. That's certain.

The funny thing this time around is that the people who have been affected are not the usual suspects. It not the migrant laborer who lives on the footpath, not the cart puller who hauls your expensive stuff nor the guy who cleans your drains. Its the middle and upper class. Its people who took foreign vacations or had visitors from foreign countries. This situation has created an interesting canvas. People who have not seen the inside of a govt hospital in their entire lives, have suddenly realised that they need to contend with the govt health care system. And BAM .. the onslaught begins. The red flags are unfurled and the sabers are drawn.

There are many emails and articles doing the rounds that the chances of you getting hit by a bus are much higher than dying at the hands of the grim swine reaper. Almost all the material points to the fact that its not as bad as its being made out to be. Be safe and take sensible precautions. thats my mantra.

So to all the Guevaras, I say, please go back to your page 3 parties, your wine tasting and cheese sampling events and spare us your damn opinions.

As luck would have it, they were playing the movie "Outbreak" on late night TV yesterday. Talk about sensitivity huh ? :-)