Wired to think differently: How grit and determination can turn disability into asset

by with 5 Comments Stories 2022

Posted on 19th September 2022

Wired to think differently: How determination can turn disability into asset

By Sahana Sitaraman

Despite having profound hearing loss from birth, Dr Mahita Jarjapu never let anything, or anyone, stop her from pursuing her dreams. Today, she works in the US as a scientist addressing questions in immunology.

Dr Mahita Jarjapu sheds light on creating a barrier-free environment for people in STEM

One fine day, around 12-18 months after a baby is born, parents get to experience the utmost joy of hearing their child’s first word. Mahita Jarjapu’s parents had to wait longer than usual to hear their daughter speak, all the while anxious if she would ever be able to.

In the dreary month of February 1990, Mahita’s parents were told by doctors that their 19-month-old daughter had profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss – a condition in which the vibration sensing hair cells in the ear are damaged.

They were told that without specialised hearing aids or a cochlear implant surgery — a fairly new and experimental technique in 1990 — Mahita will not be able to hear anything.

Desperate to hear Mahita talk, they took her to multiple doctors, audiologists and speech therapists, but were disappointed to see how children with difficulties in hearing were nowhere close to speaking fluently.

One day, a neighbour came dashing into the house and told them about Dr S R Chandrasekhar Institute of Speech and Hearing in Bengaluru. They travelled from Hyderabad to visit the institute and were redirected to Balavidyalaya – The School for Young Deaf Children, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. That marked the turning point in Mahita’s journey.

Together we thrive

At that time, Balavidyalaya was one of the very few schools in India practising ‘early intervention’ to help develop speech in children with hearing loss. Their method was rooted in making a child wear the hearing aid throughout their waking hours and exposing them to as much verbal stimuli as humanly possible, and as early as possible, to try and forge the auditory-speech pathways during the crucial years of growth.

But it came at the cost of Mahita’s mother tongue Telugu, as the technique worked best if only one language was used to communicate, in a bid to limit confusion. Mahita’s parents chose English, which was not only new to her but also her mother.

Every day, Mahita and her mother would go to school, learn new words and sentences in English and progress together. At home, from dawn to dusk, Mahita was at the receiving end of a constant running commentary of the most mundane to the most interesting activities of the day.

Around five months after starting at Balavidyalaya, Mahita’s parents finally heard the most precious sound in the whole world. She opened her tiny lips and said amma and nanna.

Five years went by in a flash and the teachers at Balavidyalaya said Mahita was ready to join a mainstream school. Wishing to be closer to their extended family, Mahita’s family went back to Hyderabad, and got her enrolled in Class 2 at Sherwood Public School. The 11 years Mahita spent there were critical in developing her confidence and drive to pursue goals deemed unattainable for her.

I was never treated differently, and the teachers were very compassionate, patient, empathetic and supportive. I was never left out and was encouraged to participate in all extracurricular activities,” Mahita recalled.

Dr Mahita Jarjapu with Saraswati Narayanaswamy, Dr Meera Suresh (currently Honorary Vice Principal of Balavidyalaya) and her parents.

Dr Mahita Jarjapu with Saraswati Narayanaswamy, founder of Balavidyalaya, during its Golden Jubilee Celebrations in December 2019.

She knew to take all the support and kindness and pay it forward. Friends remember Mahita as a bundle of positivity and kindness. “I always talk more about what I got from her than what I was able to do for her,” her friend Abhimitra Meka said, with a nostalgic smile. From teaching patience and tolerance to inculcating a drive to keep knocking down barriers, Mahita has been a strong influence in all her friends’ lives.

Hearing the inner voice

As the end of school years approached, Mahita found herself gravitating towards the field of medicine. “I was always interested in science and used to read these ‘Did You Know’, ‘Inventions and Discoveries’ types of books right from Class 6,” Mahita recounted.

But knowing well that the Indian government did not approve of doctors with hearing issues, she chose to pursue basic science. College was a major change. With classrooms accommodating hundreds of students doing parallel conversations and teachers facing the board while speaking, Mahita realised that she was missing out a lot. She could not lip-read if the speaker was turned away from her.

But she put in extra effort to be on par with her peers, and this drive got her into the Indian Institute of Technology Madras to pursue a master’s in chemistry. Not only did she excel in academics, but she also changed perspectives on communication.

Her thesis advisor Dr Nandita Madhavan said with pride in her eyes,  “Although Mahita’s speech might not be very clear, but the way she communicated her research ideas, it was probably one of the best ways. That made me wonder, do we sometimes over-emphasise accents, pronunciations and how we speak?”

Mahita continued her streak of excellence and joined Prof R Sowdhamini’s group at the National Centre for Biological Science (NCBS) for a PhD, in 2011. In the six years she spent there, she dazzled her advisors and peers with her intelligence, patience and diversity of talents.

In the beginning, I used to draw and explain many things. But I soon realised she does not need any of that support. She is very, very smart. And extremely adept at lip-reading,” Prof Sowdhamini said.

Her friends and colleagues went the extra mile to make sure she was included in all settings — formal and informal. “I ensured we did not switch to Hindi or other languages, while Mahita was there,” recounted Pritha Ghosh, Mahita’s friend from NCBS.

But her most challenging, yet fun experience with Mahita was when she taught her Odissi. Ghosh reminisced, “Whenever I taught her, she would ask me what is the gap between this step and the next, in seconds? It made me look at dance in a different way.”

“Over time, I have come to realise that her way of thinking is quite valuable. When I replicate that and try to think along the same lines, I tend to be a more satisfied scientist,” said Abhimitra.

Dr Mahita Jarjapu with her friend Roopa Comandur, at IIT Madras convocation

Dr Mahita Jarjapu handing over her thesis to Prof. Sowdhamini

Being in environments not designed for people with hearing issues challenged Mahita to come up with her own ways of doing things. “Since I already know that during seminars, the audience might not be able to follow my speech/acoustically understand me fully, I make my presentations in such a way that they are self-explanatory while ensuring the audience is not overwhelmed by the amount of text on the slide,” Mahita explained.

Extensive reading of literature made up for the missed conversations in group settings. But sometimes, being oblivious to these exchanges acted as an advantage. “If someone in a group is discussing how difficult a task is, and I miss out on that part of the conversation, I might go ahead and attempt it and try to make it work,” Mahita said.

Excellence as a way of life

Continuing her academic career, Dr Mahita went to Prof Chris-Bailey Kellogg’s lab at Dartmouth College for her first postdoc and is currently in the lab of Prof Bjoern Peters, at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, San Diego, California. She is working towards understanding what makes an antibody choose a particular binding site (or epitope) on the antigen and is also involved with the Coronavirus Immunotherapeutic Consortium.

Since moving to the US, and with the start of the Zoom era, Mahita has gained immensely from regular access to closed captioning during meetings and seminars. Having visited and lived in multiple countries, Mahita felt India has much to learn in making spaces more inclusive.

Awareness about early intervention and special education at a young age is a must. But even more crucial is the integration of children with disabilities into mainstream schools, facilitating not only their growth, but also inculcation of acceptance in children without disabilities.

Prasada Rao, her father, feels the country has a long way to go. “It is disappointing to see that three decades later, parents are still not advised about auditory-verbal therapy, which is much more comprehensive than speech therapy for developing speech-language skills in young children with hearing loss,” he said.

“From the beginning, our objective was to make her stand on her own. She should not depend on anybody. We did whatever was needed to achieve that goal,” Rao said with certainty.

Their efforts have borne the sweetest fruits. A journey that started with tears of agony has transformed into one where Mahita’s parents’ eyes swell with tears of pride. 

Dr Mahita Jarjapu at her thesis defence seminar

Dr Mahita Jarjapu and her parents
Dr Mahita Jarjapu and her parents
At Chennai, when Mahita was being trained in Balavidyalaya. She was wearing pocket hearing aids then. You can see them strapped to her chest, with wires connecting them to her ears.
At Chennai, when Mahita was being trained in Balavidyalaya. She was wearing pocket hearing aids then. You can see them strapped to her chest, with wires connecting them to her ears.
In 1994, the Silver Jubilee of Balavidyalaya, along with other students in English medium who were undergoing training. Mahita is the girl in the yellow frock, top row, middle.
In 1994, the Silver Jubilee of Balavidyalaya, along with other students in English medium who were undergoing training. Mahita is the girl in the yellow frock, top row, middle.
Sherwood Public School reunion in 2014 where Dr Mahita stands with her classmates and teachers.
Sherwood Public School reunion in 2014 where Dr Mahita stands with her classmates and teachers.
Mahita with school friends at Sherwood Public School, 12th class (2006)
Mahita with school friends at Sherwood Public School, 12th class (2006)

BMC’s first woman director, Archana Achrekar builds an inclusive legacy

by with 32 Comments Stories 2022

Posted on 12th September 2022

BMC's first woman director, Archana Achrekar builds an inclusive legacy

By Poorvi Gupta

From delayed promotions to men who refused to take orders, Archana Achrekar has fought several gender biases and paved the way for more women employees at Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation

Since 1888, the year when BMC was founded, no woman engineer had been appointed as director. Achrekar’s post comes third in the municipal administration hierarchy, after the commissioner and the additional municipal commissioner.

Women civil engineers were a rare sight in the country when Archana Achrekar joined the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in 1984. Though India got its first female civil engineer in Shakuntala Bhagat almost 30 years prior, things were seldom rosy for Achrekar.

Achrekar landed the appointment in 2020 and proved her mettle despite the roadblocks set by COVID-19.

When she landed the appointment in June 2020, Achrekar (60) was the first woman to head the Engineering Services and Projects section at the BMC, in the 132 years of its existence. However, her path was strewn with obstacles: delayed promotions, a misogynistic work atmosphere and restricted access to the field, among other things.

Achrekar studied at Mumbai-based Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute, the same college from where Bhagat graduated in 1953.

At college, boys would taunt me saying I was wasting a seat. They thought my civil engineering degree was useless as women typically stop going to work after marriage," Achrekar told 101Reporters. 

However, she knew how passionate she was about engineering. The aspects of design and fieldwork that she learnt in her final year consultancy project at M/s Gadiyali and Rawal Consulting Engineers truly solidified her passion for civil engineering. That lit a fire in her belly, which she continued to carry with her until her retirement in September last year.

From desk job to fieldwork

Fieldwork was a part of her consultant job. At the BMC, however, Achrekar had to wait for two years to get her first project. “Back then, women working as field engineers were frowned upon. Therefore, I was assigned a desk job. I was the only woman in meetings; my peers would not take me seriously or hear my project views. But I persisted and got my first fieldwork project in the sewerage department. I wanted to do technical work, and not a desk job of making reports,” exclaimed Achrekar.  

However, things were not any better on the field either. Achrekar recalled how the men in the team would often stare at her as if they were wondering why she was there at all! “Those days, the BMC hardly welcomed women engineers. They were far more present in administrative services than in engineering services,” Achrekar said.

In the early 2000s, Achrekar had a woman colleague running for a prime engineering position at the BMC. Unfortunately, she was not selected, which discouraged that woman to such an extent that she took voluntary retirement.

Watching her quit, similar thoughts crossed Achrekar’s mind as well. Instead of quitting, she decided to share experiences of gender-based microaggressions at the workplace with her female peers in both government and private sector organisations. This helped her feel a sense of solidarity, which boosted her resolve to persist and thrive.

Archana had been the chief engineer of BMC’s city engineer department

Achrekar celebrates Independence Day 2022, proud as she has created a legacy of inclusive municipal corporations.

Over the years, Achrekar has managed several BMC projects, the most significant being the AK Vaidya Olympic-sized swimming pool at Chembur and Ramdev Peer Mandir Marg at Kurla. She also built the staff quarters for solid waste management labourers at Kandivali. She was part of the planning team for the redevelopment of Crawford Market and overlooked the concretisation of parts of arterial roads such as LBS Marg, VN Purav Marg and Ghatkopar-Mankhurd Marg.

No longer a man's world

Twelve years after joining the BMC, Achrekar got her first promotion in 1996. There were no women civil engineers with her level of experience. Men around her were not used to having female bosses. Even her male juniors found it challenging to take instructions from her!

When promoted as Deputy Chief Engineer in 2012, she got her own cabin with an attached washroom. “It was a newly constructed office. However, the washroom had a urinal suitable only for men! It was quite clear that the office was built with the perception that only men would take up that position,” Achrekar said. 

Not just the office infrastructure, even the policies were designed to keep women away from long-lasting careers. Achrekar recalled that when she gave birth to her sons, only a three-month pregnancy leave was allowed at the BMC. No childcare leave or childcare centres for working women were present. As a result, she relied on her mother-in-law to raise her children.

"I somehow managed, just like other women from that time. It is a good thing that women now get maternity leave for six months, besides childcare services. It allows them to balance both work and personal life, instead of struggling in both," Achrekar added.

A study by Sukhatme and Dr Bharati Parikh at IIT Bombay has observed a positive trend of increased female enrolment in engineering colleges in the 1990s, though with a decreased rate of employment. Women engineers in the workforce went from 69% in the 1980s to 55% in the 1990s. 

Achrekar, however, noted that women’s participation in the workforce increased in the mid-2000s.

According to the Engineering Workforce Commission, in 2010, women received 19.7% of all civil engineering degrees awarded, as against the 18.2% in all engineering streams. Moreover, as per a report on women workers in India by the Neville Wadia Institute of Management Studies and Research, the increase in work opportunities in the early years of the new millennium has been to the tune of 9.3 million jobs per annum (from 1999-2000 to 2004-05). Of the total 46 million jobs created during this period, nearly 15 million went to women.

‘A change in mindset came about when the BMC promoted some women in mechanical and electrical engineering to mid-level posts and also started recruiting more women. Today, I see many women civil engineers, working shoulder to shoulder with men. In fact, women engineers have shown how intelligent, dedicated and dependable they are,” said Achrekar. 

A Women’s Day celebration at Archana Achrekar’s office.

Ridhi Gurav (centre), one of Achrekar’s mentees, stands tall with her leader.

In mentor’s role

Achrekar’s journey and passion have inspired many women to enter the field. One of her mentees, Ridhi Gurav (32), a Sub-engineer (Civil) at the BMC, said Achrekar was a supportive superior who helped evoke a strong sense of self-actualisation.

I recently cleared the Maharashtra Public Service Commission exam for recruitment to the post of assistant commissioner in the BMC, and she was the one who asked me every day what all and how much I had studied. Whenever I felt low, she guided me," said Gurav, who worked with Achrekar at the Civic Training Institute & Research Centre. 

Abhay Sabnis, Deputy Chief Engineer at the BMC, worked with Achrekar for two tenures, when she was a chief engineer and when she became the director. “She has been a kind and generous boss, who likes to play on people’s strengths. She never let her team members face brickbats,” Sabnis told 101Reporters. 

“She has certainly left a positive mark as a director who could make everyone feel at ease. Her achievement has opened the gates for women engineers. Today, they prefer to take up fieldwork more. This has only been made possible because of the consistent efforts of engineers like Achrekar, who never shied away from field projects.”

“Her peers saw history being created with her appointment, and now we see more women being promoted to leadership positions in the civic body,” Sabnis added.

Achrekar with her parents and sister
Achrekar with her parents and sister
The Duo: Achrekar at Khardungla with her sister
The Duo: Achrekar at Khardungla with her sister
With mother Sadhana Vaidya, when Achrekar was a kid.
With mother Sadhana Vaidya, when Achrekar was a kid.

The sky is everyone’s laboratory

by with No Comment Stories 2022

Posted on 5th September 2022

The sky is everyone’s laboratory

By Priyamvada Kowshik

Astrophysicist Prajval Shastri is equally preoccupied with her efforts to make the discipline of physics more inclusive, as she is with her studies on black holes

Prajval Shastri was not even seven when she set her heart on space exploration. Humans were yet to land on the moon, as Shastri told her mother about her plans to be a scientist on a spaceship. 

Prof Prajval Shastri was born to parents who were science buffs. Hence, gravitating towards science came easy to her.

I remember being disappointed to learn that. A couple of years later, when the moon-landing finally happened in 1969, we listened to the live stream on All India Radio. That was an era when scientific discussions were as much part of our living rooms as they were in our classrooms," recalls Professor Shastri (63), Emeritus Scientist at the Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru.

One of the foremost astrophysicists in the country, Prof Shastri specialises in supermassive black holes at the centre of distant galaxies and the jet streams emerging from them.

She is equally passionate about dismantling the patriarchy in science, and the inequities and systemic barriers for women in physics. Shastri wants to build an inclusive physics community, where people of all backgrounds can thrive. 

Women in science represent an important societal intersection and among the sciences, physics has one of the largest gender gaps among science disciplines. To address this inequity, Prof Shastri founded and chaired the Gender in Physics Working Group (GIPWG) of the Indian Physics Association (IPA). She also conceived and led the drafting of the Hyderabad Charter for Gender Equity in Physics, a call to action to the Indian physics community to address gender disparity. 

A detested tag: Woman first, scientist later

Shastri’s physics education started purely out of a passion for science. She was born a year after the Sputnik launch; her father was a practicing medical doctor, and her mother a science buff. 

An education at St Agnes College in Mangaluru nurtured her scientific spirit, but it did not give her any inkling of the gender inequities in her chosen discipline. “In school, our science and mathematics teachers were women; in college, it was an equal mix. I saw education as a gender-equal space. I knew about caste, class and gender inequities in the outside society, but I had not yet awakened to the systemic inequities within education, especially physics,” she tells 101Reporters.  

That was until she joined IIT Bombay for her master’s programme. “We were 80 females amid 2,000 male students across all streams. And that is the first time I encountered remarks like ‘Oh, girls do well because they are bookish… girls are not bright’,” she recalls.

One incident that impacted her was when she scored higher than her male lab partner. “I was told I got a higher grade because I am a girl. It was demoralising, and I could not process it initially, despite being a fairly politicised person. I read history and philosophy, in addition to science, and was very much alive to what was happening around me,” says Shastri.

Prof Shastri has held post-doctoral research positions at the University of Texas at Austin, University of California at Berkeley and the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics.

A preparatory workshop for the Transit of Venus 2012 that Prof Shastri organised at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics. She is seen here with Arvind Paranjape, current director of the Mumbai Planetarium.

During her PhD studies at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, the experience of inequality “was up by a couple of notches”. “Our identities were first defined as women, not as passionate science scholars,” Shastri says candidly. 

In 1992, while pursuing her postdoctoral research in the US, the landmark Baltimore Charter for Women in Astronomy — which addressed the need to develop a scientific culture within which both women and men can work equally and effectively — was held. 

“That opened my eyes to how the inequity we experience results from a systemic phenomenon of patriarchy within the sciences. Patriarchy associates science with brilliance and tells you that women are not as brilliant as men. Women also internalise these stereotypes. So the general perception is that science gets more challenging for women as they progress to higher education and research. However, they don’t discuss the barriers and biases within. No study has found a productivity or competence deficit in women. On the contrary, stereotypes and barriers have been identified,” Shastri reveals.  

In the hiring process, these biases “unconsciously” put women candidates at a disadvantage. “When a woman applies for a faculty position, instead of simply looking at her academic track record, teaching experience, research and recommendations, the hiring committees start to second guess if she is married, will she do so, will she relocate, get pregnant, or will we lose her for a year for maternity leave,” Shastri elaborates. 

Branding as incompetent

“If you’re talking about inequity, you must be an incompetent scientist.” This deep-rooted bias was quite evident to Shastri ever since she returned to India in 1995, as a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bengaluru. It took her more than a decade to publicly voice her views.

In 2008, the conversation around gender inequity in physics and its impact on scientific productivity and excellence gathered momentum. To celebrate 400 years of Galileo’s discovery, 2009 was declared the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations. The powerful motto, ‘She is an Astronomer’, centred around the gender issue in astrophysics. The IIA was a focal point for these activities in the country, with Shastri in the lead.   

The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP), a global union of professional physicists, has a working group for Women in Physics (Shastri prefers the more inclusive term ‘Gender in Physics’). It organises international conferences every three years where, alongside cutting-edge research, interactive workshops on addressing gender inequities are held. The country teams are responsible for keeping the discourse alive within the physics community. In 2011, Shastri joined her colleagues who were involved with the IUPAP and started speaking up about the inequities in scientific forums.

"When I attended the 2011 conference as India's team leader, I realised that we did not have a forum or society to discuss these recommendations," says Shastri, while elaborating on how she proposed (in 2011) and eventually led the GIPWG in 2017. 

Women and people of marginalised social identities in science widely report that raising issues of inequity leads to their core academic work being undervalued. “Forget about talking of equity in science; even if I am involved in science outreach activities, I have to work harder at my research to not be called incompetent,” says Shastri. Her research papers not only deal with the black hole-galaxy connection, but also gender inequity. She addresses issues such as science communication in regional languages as well.

Shastri rightly emphasises the need for a course on the social processes in science practice, as a part of the graduate physics curriculum.

She believes that the cultivation of scientific thinking is for everyone, uses astrophysics as a vehicle to engage lay audiences of all ages with these questions, and works for the Peoples Science Movement towards this goal.

Prof Shastri has been a Fulbright fellow at Stanford University and is currently an Emeritus Scientist at the Raman Research Institute and Adjunct Professor at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Australia.

Posing tough questions

It was from multiple academic discussions of the GIPWG that the Hyderabad Charter emerged. ‘Pressing for Progress’, an interdisciplinary three-day conference, was held at Hyderabad University in September 2019, bringing together both scientists and social scientists. Apart from the workshops on the latest research in physics, sociological discussions and innovative theatre methodologies were used to explore issues of gender inequity.

The guiding principle of the Hyderabad Charter is that inequity results from patriarchy, both social and within the sciences. The charter noted: “The fraction of women with PhDs in physics, who are employed in tertiary education countrywide, is just 20%, far less than in biology. That fraction plummets to 10% and lowers in elite research institutions, leadership positions, and honours lists. The low fraction cannot be explained as a lack of interest in physics among girls — they win almost 50% of the INSPIRE fellowships in physics.” 

Some call it the “leaky pipeline”, but Shastri dismisses the metaphor. “It is a matter of the barriers getting bigger as women progress in their scientific studies,” she says.

The Hyderabad Charter calls for higher education and research institutions to have transparent criteria for hiring, the absence of which lands up being discriminatory towards women and minorities. Some key recommendations are: excluding the status/position or background of the spouse when assessing merit, encouraging work-life balance policies, including gender-neutral childcare leave, investing in diversity officers in committees  for selection, hiring, promotion, and research funding, etc. It notes that the commitment of institutional leaders is key to making progress.

Prof Prajval Shastri interacts with young astrophysicists, encouraging them to go a long way!

Shastri continues to use every platform to keep the discourse alive. “We are trying to get endorsements for the Hyderabad Charter from physicists across the country and 350 of them have endorsed it so far,” Shastri says. 

Acknowledging Shastri’s contribution, Dr Mamta Pandey-Pommeir, Chair of the The International Astronomical Union’s Women in Astronomy Working Group, France, tells 101Reporters that Shastri’s work has truly promoted Indian women’s careers in astronomy.

How this army doctor realised that kitchen is a battlefield for most rural women

by with 3 Comments Stories 2022

Posted on 29 August 2022

How this army doctor realised that kitchen is a battlefield for most rural women

By Rina Mukherji

From Maharashtra’s villages to Indo-Pak borders, Dr Monica Barne’s work in medicine has taken her many places. But over the past two decades, her contribution to creating awareness on pulmonary diseases remains the pinnacle of her work.

“It is not just rural folk. Even the lower middle and middle class in urban India pay scant attention to the health of women working in the kitchens,” Dr Monica Barne quips. “To bring about a change, the younger generation needs to step up. During a school education programme, I urged students to get a gift for their mothers — an exhaust fan.”

Technician Shweta and Major ( Dr ) Monica Barne testing a patient using spirometer

The director of the Pulmocare Research and Education (PURE) Foundation and the CEO and head (training division) of the Chest Research & Training (CREST) Pvt Ltd, Dr Barne has been at the forefront of creating awareness on pulmonary diseases across India over the past two decades.

However, it was her personal life that shaped her professional career.

My daughter was asthmatic and suffered terribly. Her condition got me interested in pulmonary research.

Driven by her daughter’s asthma, she kickstarted a career in respiratory research, where she focused not only on asthma and allergic rhinitis, but also chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), her area of particular interest. According to the Global Burden of Disease study, 1990-2016, the COPD accounts for the second highest number of deaths in India, after heart disease.

But before Dr Barne would gain recognition for her work in this field, she would make a journey in the medical field that would see her not only work with the Indian Army, but also help her understand the problems plaguing healthcare in rural India.

From fields to the battlefields

Hailing from a family of farmers in Maharashtra’s Akola district, Dr Barne received a lot of support. Even while he worked on the family farm in Akola, her father attended school, and ultimately completed his post-graduation in chemistry to join the Ministry of Defence’s DRDO Quality Assurance Division, from where he retired as deputy controller (QAE-Military Explosives). Her mother, on the other hand, could not finish her schooling due to early marriage, but she completed her matriculation thereafter.

Seeing the poor condition of the healthcare facilities in her ancestral village, Dr Barne was inspired to work in the medical field. After clearing her higher secondary board exams, she got admitted to Pune’s BJ Medical College.

It was immediately after she had completed the initial part of her medical internship in Pune that Dr Barne joined the Indian Army on a Short Service Commission. This coincided with a tumultuous period in Indian history. 

During her posting in a remote village in Gujarat’s Surendranagar district, where she was completing her rural internship, things took a serious turn with the Kargil War breaking out in July 1999. Dr Barne was sent to an advanced dressing station on the Indo-Pak border in Rajasthan’s Bikaner to attend to war casualties.

After the war ended, she managed the outpatient department in Bikaner city for the families of defence personnel. But two years later, things changed again when the Indian Parliament was attacked in December 2001. Next year, the army launched Operation Parakram, and Dr Barne was sent to the border again.

Dr (Major) Monica Barne as an army doctor. She served at the Indo-Pak border during the Kargil War in an advanced dressed station.

A patient being tested using a spirometer 

An eye-opener

While in Bikaner, Dr Barne also attended to local civilians as no proper healthcare was available to them. There, she rediscovered her diagnostic talents. For instance, she detected pericarditis (inflammation of the pericardium in the heart) in a heat stroke victim and immediately sent him to hospital, thus saving his life. Similarly, she detected a hole in the heart of a boy who had come to get a cough and cold treated.

However, Dr Barne was also exposed to the realities of rural India — the poverty and gender disparities. In treating women, she got first-hand experience of the ways of rural life.

There was this young couple, with a toddler, who had come to me. They wanted an abortion because the woman was saddled with an unwanted pregnancy. Abhi nahi chahiye (we don’t want another child now), she told me. Abortion was legal, but why were they not practising contraception? The woman had nothing to say when I questioned them. But talking to the husband, I realised he considered it below his dignity to use a condom. Because of him, his wife would suffer.

To new beginnings

Once her stint in the army ended, Dr Barne first moved to Nagpur. She then married marketing professional Sumit Barne and moved back to Pune, where she worked at places that did not involve treating patients, leaving her dissatisfied.

It was around the time her daughter Yutika was born, that her husband was transferred to Mumbai. Dr Barne decided to take a break as her daughter was still a toddler. Moreover, her daughter was asthmatic.

In a few years’ time, her husband was transferred back to Pune. Since the family had moved to Kalyani Nagar, where the Chest Research Foundation (CRF) was located, Dr Barne took the opportunity to join up as part of their medical team.

During her work with the CRF, Dr Barne not only fulfilled her ambition of treating the underprivileged, she also began working on her medical research. With the help of Dr Sundeep Salvi, who headed CRF, she did pioneering research on several respiratory morbidities.

For instance, Dr Barne was part of the POSEIDON study, which showed that lung diseases are the major reason patients visit a doctor across all age groups.

Crucially, she was also involved in developing material for the detection, prevention and diagnosis of COPD by Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in rural India. She was also instrumental in highlighting the prevalence of respiratory disorders in rural women due to indoor air pollution through studies undertaken in the interiors of Maharashtra.

Dr (Major) Monica Barne as an army doctor. She served at the Indo-Pak border during the Kargil War in an advanced dressing station.

 

Moreover, Dr Barne was the lead researcher for the Global Asthma Network study on paediatric asthma, allergic rhinitis and eczema. The study used data from children and parents to determine the role of genetic and environmental factors in the prevalence of these diseases.

After CRF shut down a couple of years ago, Dr Barne set up the PURE Foundation and CREST in Pune with some of her former colleagues, to continue working on respiratory health.

A woman in medicine

Coming from a remote rural region, where even basic healthcare facilities were not available, her parents — her mother in particular — appreciated the value of doctors even more. Hence, they were glad when Dr Barne decided to pursue medicine.

Dr Barne especially singles out her mother for her unstinted support to herself and her siblings, where pursuing their respective professional careers is concerned.

She (mother) was appreciative of education and ended up making us all highly-educated professionals

Asked if she had any advice for women who want to be in STEM, Dr Barne has only this to say: “Go for it! Remember, you are as efficient and as capable as anyone else. Aspire to be a leader!”

Edited by Sharad Akavoor

Dr Barne on a jungle safari with her family