'Whastic' is a place where we have discussions over stuff that is close to our hearts. Have a listen or even join us in the discussion if you like.
Visit: podcasts.whastic.com
Podcast Overview
'Whastic' is a place where we have discussions over stuff that is close to our hearts. Have a listen or even join us in the discussion if you like. Visit: podcasts.whastic.com
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Publishing Since
8/14/2020
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Recent Episodes
September 27, 2020
Sushila Nayyar – The Doctor of a Republic
Dr. Sushila Nayyar is perhaps best known for being the personal doctor to Mahatma Gandhi. She can be seen besides him, supporting him and helping him walk in a lot of photos. Her story however goes much further than these photos. She was a freedom fighter who played pivotal roles in the struggle against British. She went on to be the Union Minister of Health and set up the first rural medical college of Independent India. Her political career and public health advocacy played important roles in shaping the healthcare systems in a young and developing India. The relatives were afraid to shelter the children of rebelsSushila Nayyar - Understanding Gandhi: Gandhians in Conversation with Fred J Blum Sushila Nayyar was born in 1914 in a small town in a middle-class family which was devoted to Gandhi. Sushila had two older brothers, oldest was Pyarelal Ji, who was serving as an aid to Gandhi. She met Gandhi the first time when she was just six years old when her mother took her along to meet him in Rohtak where he asked her to meet him later in Lahore instead. Sushila’s father had already passed away and her mother wanted to request Gandhi to let her son Pyarelal return home to take care of her family. During the meeting with Gandhi, her mother could not say what she had rehearsed and instead asked him to return Pyarelal after a few years. Noticing Sushila’s non-khadi clothes, Gandhi later asked her mother “Why don’t you give this little girl to me”, a request her mother denied. While Sushila was at a boarding school, her mother was often in prison for activities related to the Satyagrah movement. This brought her close to the Ashram where she used to spend her vacations. “The relatives were afraid to shelter the children of rebels.” She said in an interview with Fred J Blum. Sushila studied Medicine at Lady Hardinge Medical College in Delhi, from where she earned her MBBS. She took a course of studies in maternal and child health in Kolkata. There she helped Gandhi while he was suffering from High Blood Pressure. On insistence of Dr. B. C. Roy, Gandhi’s doctor, she returned with and stayed with Gandhi for a month to monitor his health. In 1939, Gandhi travelled to Rajkot and took Sushila with him as his ‘Personal Physician’. She wrote in her book ‘Mahatma Gandhi’s Last Imprisonment’, “I was flattered but felt somewhat embarrassed by the title as I was just a raw graduate, very young and inexperienced. When Journalists approached me for the news about Gandhiji’s health, I could hardly talk with them”. Gandhiji was not the man to keep a doctor for himself. So, I became the doctor for all the Ashram inmates and the villagers around Sevagram. I set up a dispensary in Sevagram, and learnt to train and use volunteers to fight epidemics and give medical care to villagers. In this way I was initiated into the concept of integrated, preventive and curative medical practice and community medicine which, as everyone today agrees, must form the basis of India’s health services.Sushila Nayyar - Understanding Gandhi: Gandhians in Conversation with Fred J Blum Sushila completed her exams for Doctorate of Medicine from the same college in 1942 and was awaiting results. She was planning to travel back to Sevagram but got a tip from her acquaintance working for the Viceroy’s office that there were going to be mass arrests in Bombay during an AICC meeting. Quoting her, “I had no notion at that time that I was going to plunge headlong into the Quit India Movement on reaching Bombay. I arrived in Bombay on August 8, as the train had to do a detour because of breaches on the railway line owing to heavy rains. The next day I found myself in Prison.” On 8th August 1942, Mahatma Gandhi declared the ‘Quit India Movement’ at Gowalia Tank Maidan after a near unanimous vote at the AICC meeting. It was a clear demand that the British leave India in an orderly manner. Gandhi was arrested the following morning under the Defence of India Ordinan
September 13, 2020
Ayyalasomayajula Lalitha Rao – The Electric Flame
Lalitha was born on 27th August 1919 in a middle class Telegu family in Chennai. She was the fifth of seven children. Her father and all of her brothers were engineers from College of Engineering, Guindy (CEG), University of Madras, while her sisters were educated up to 10th grade. While it is still a concern, the practice of early marriage was common during those times. Lalitha was married at the age of 15. Her parents insisted that she continue her education even after marriage. Although it came to a stop after she completed her Secondary School or 10th grade education. In 1937, at the age of 18 she gave birth to her daughter Syamala. Just four months later, her husband passed away. Being a young mother is difficult, being a widow with a baby, even more so. Widows in India face a lot of challenges, often based in tradition. Some such traditions have been extremely inhumane. From Sati, which forced women into a ritualistic immolation on husband’s pyre to having to renounce all wealth and their identity. In most parts of India women are still forced or socially pressured into giving up vanity, sometimes including only wearing white sarees and shaving their heads, and be excluded from all social events. These issues and other factors force women to live out their lives in Ashrams especially made for them. At Society of Women Engineers’ first international conference in 1964, Lalitha said “150 years ago, I would have been burned at the funeral pyre with my husband’s body “. Her daughter Syamala said (to The Better India), “When my father passed away, mom had to suffer more than she should have. Her mother-in-law had lost her 16th child and took out that frustration on the young widow. It was a coping mechanism and today, I understand what she was going through. However, my mother decided not to succumb to societal pressures. She would educate herself and earn a respectable job.” Lalitha wanted to become self-sufficient and support her daughter, so she decided to get a professional degree. She joined Queen Mary’s College in Chennai and completed her Intermediate education with first class. Women in India had started earning regular degrees by now. Some of the most famous pioneers being Janaki Ammal and Kadambini Ganguly. Most of these were in Medical field but a career in medicine did not seem appealing to Lalitha as she did not want to leave baby Syamala during field work. Instead, she wanted to become an engineer like her father and brothers. She wanted a regular-hours job so she could spend time with and raise her daughter. Her father, Pappu Subba Rao was a teacher at CEG, he approached the principal Dr. K.C. Chacko on her behalf. While her grades were good enough for a man to get into CEG, they had to not only convince the Principal but also take permission from the British government. The Principal and Director of Public Instruction RM Statham, decided it was time for the college to admit Women Students. Lalitha was granted an admission in 1940 into the four-year electrical engineering program. After the initial reluctance, authorities and officials of the college were supportive of her. Syamala says, “Contrary to what people might think, the students at amma’s college were extremely supportive. She was the only girl in a college with hundreds of boys but no one ever made her feel uncomfortable and we need to give credit to this. The authorities arranged for a separate hostel for her too. I used to live with my uncle while amma was completing college and she would visit me every weekend”. After a few months, at the initiative of Lalitha’s father, CEG advertised open admissions for women. As a result, two more women entered the college in the same year, Leelamma George and P. K. Theressia, who were remarkable in their own right. Lalitha, Thressia, and Leelamma graduated from CEG in 1943. Syamala explains, “Both of them were juniors to my mother by a year. However, all three of them graduated together because th
September 6, 2020
Maryam Mirzakhani – The Storyteller
As a young girl, Maryam used to make up stories in her head. In her creations, one day she’d be a leader, one day a hero, and some days she’d travel the world to fulfill her destiny. Perhaps even more remarkable was her real life. She dared to dream in a nation fresh out of war and challenged the social norms around. She saw the connections which threaded different fields of mathematics and explored the web of hyperbolic surfaces. Her research not only illuminated her own path, but opened avenues for others who came after her. She was the first woman to be awarded a Field Medal in Mathematics. We might know little of her, but every little girl in Iran knows the name. Maryam Mirzakhani was born on 12th May 1977 in Tehran, the capital city of Iran. She had no dreams of becoming a mathematician. As a child all she wanted to do was to read all the fictional books she could find and watch TV documentaries of famous people including Marie Curie and Helen Keller. She was inspired to become a writer and from a young age had a habit of doodling. She completed her elementary school education in Tehran about the time when the Iran-Iraq war ended. She moved to a Farzanegan School for her middle school education. Farzanegan Schools were gendered schools established by Iran’s National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents. These schools had better resources and better paid teachers. “I think I was the lucky generation”, she said, during an interview, “any older I would not have got these opportunities”. In the same school in 6th grade she met Roya Beheshti, who would become her lifelong friend. Mirzakhani and Beheshti found a common interest to indulge in. They used to explore the bookstores near their school and buy random books off the shelves. Books during this period were very cheap and they weren’t allowed to browse or read them in stores. Beheshti says, “I remember a time when Maryam was not good at math. In the first year Maryam was the top student in every class except math”. She adds “Maryam got her test back and she got 16/20” – “Maryam was so frustrated that before putting the test in her bag, she tore it apart and said that, that was it for her. And she was not going to even try to do better. This is Maryam when she was 11. That didn’t last long, after the summer break she came back with her confidence regain and she started to do very well”. Mirzakhani’s Mathematics teacher did not think of her as a talented student, which was a blow to her confidence. At that age “it is so important what others see in you”, Mirzakhani said in an interview with Quanta. The following year, however, Mirzakhani had a more encouraging teacher and as a result, her confidence re-emerged. Beheshti and Mirzakhani found another common interest in Mathematics after that. They both graduated to high school where they found questions to a national competition to pick candidates for International Olympiad in Informatics. They managed to solve three of the six problems over the course of several days. This gave Mirzakhani something to aspire for. They met their principal and demanded problem solving classes in mathematics comparable to the ones being taught in Boys’ school. Mirzakhani recalled her principal as being very supportive and strong, “If we really wanted something, she would make it happen”. Their principal encouraged them even though there had never been a girl on the International Team. Mirzakhani believed that the support and encouragement she received from the principal “has influenced my life quite a lot”. Mirzakhani and Beheshti became the first women qualified for the Iranian Math Olympiad team in 1994. Mirzakhani earned a Gold medal that year scoring 41 out of 42 points, Beheshti won the Silver Medal with 35/42 points. Mirzakhani wasn’t done yet; she returned to the Olympiad the following year and achieved a perfect score and became the first Iranian to do so and earn two gold medals. Her solutions lead to her
7 total episodes available
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