Home / News / India News / Article /
When corridors of learning turn into passages of discrimination
Updated On: 02 June, 2019 12:00 AM IST | | Pallavi Smart, Rupsa Chakraborty and Anurag Kamble
Dr Payal Tadvi-s suicide after harassment by seniors is not surprising for scores of students from backward communities and Scheduled Castes and Tribes, who are given lessons less often in their subjects and more often on -their place in society-
Listen to this article :
Panvel-based pathologist Dr Santosh Wakchaure hails from Ahmednagars Chambhar community and stood 50th across Maharashtra in the degree entrance test. At BYL Nair Hospital, he faced caste-based harassment, especially after he was voted president of MARD.
At Panvel-s Horizon Diagnostics, where a board announces a list of available services — from blood tests to audiometry — hangs a proud board: Dr Santosh Wakchaure; MBBS MD Path, AFIH, LLB; Consultant Pathologist. The board represents a long journey for Wakchaure, 32, who set up the clinic in 2014.
His childhood, he says, was spent in a 100-sq-feet room in a village in Ahmednagar district which he shared with five siblings and his parents. His father worked as a peon at a government school, while his mother was a daily wage earner under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. While Wakchaure runs tests on patients in air-conditioned rooms, his mother "would dig drains under the scheme". Between the two, the parents would barely earn R2,000 a month to feed eight mouths, he says. He watched how his parents struggled to cough up money for the smallest of medical treatments. And, when his elder brother decided to pursue a career in medicine, Wakchaure figured he-d follow suit. Both made it to Mumbai institutes.
Read Next Story
Trending Stories
Latest Photos
Latest Videos
Latest Web Stories
ADVERTISEMENT
Mid-Day Fast
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT