Come Diwali and a considerable number of people all over the country get burns and many die of burn-related injuries. This Diwali, a small diya kept near a staircase had my aunt (my brother-in-law and fellow TSI columnist Prashanto Bannerjee’s mother) in its deadly wrap. Despite her saree being made of cotton, and despite my brother-in-law noticing the burning saree instantly and putting off the flames with buckets of water within twenty seconds, she got 65% burns — and at 72 years of age, that is dangerous!

When we reached Apollo Hospitals in New Delhi — where we finally admitted her — the doctor told us that if she had been of Prashanto’s age (36), he would have given her only a 20% chance of survival with the 3rd degree burns that she had. But then, there’s a small background story. Prashanto’s mother was initially taken to Max Super Speciality Hospital. To our surprise, we were told to get her admitted somewhere else since they didn’t treat burn injuries. The quick research we did after our visit to Max gave us a shocking statistic. In Delhi there are only two hospitals capable of treating burn injuries. If Delhi is like this, then the average Indian city has more or less no hospital to handle such cases!