The call for saving environment (in its widest meaning) from getting degraded to unlivable status, launched by the nation’s Prime Minister on October 2, 2014 under the banner of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan continues to be pursued, without relenting, nationally through all forms of media while locally (in every nook and corner of the country, including Mysuru) the response from the masses is none-too-satisfying. The underlying message of the intimate connect between afflictions in their growing multiple identities expressed by the medicos using both familiar and unfamiliar terminology on one hand and living in insanitary environs, in addition to hogging foods that don’t pass scrutiny of safety seems to have been totally lost on the land’s masses, both urban and rustic. Juxtaposed to this unacceptable wellness, read illness scenario, is the fact that India is glorified as the world’s pharmaceutical hub. The country is the biggest supplier of various vaccines to the world at large.

Warnings from authoritative quarters, both individually and enmasse about the causes of the many major afflictions, particularly use of tobacco and consumption of junk foods have been openly mocked at even by the literati, thanks to the greater influence of the sensory organs coupled with temptations to get that kick from indulgence, what to talk of poor understanding of causes of and remedies for various diseases. The colossal loss of manpower that the masses can contribute to sustain a vibrant economy because of neglecting their wellness is tell-tale.

More one ponders about developments such as establishment of hospitals equipped with state-of-the-art diagnostic tools, emergence of drugs with improved efficacy, rise in individual incomes in urban spaces and so on, more one is left wondering about the unrelenting numbers of victims of the major diseases in the country’s population. The sections that can ill-afford to neglect the focus on wellness account for nearly 90 per cent of the country’s workforce, this mass being in unorganised category, with virtually no access to medicare. Vendors of life’s various essentials at the doorstep of consumers, domestic helps, building construction workers, loaders of commodities in the trade, roadside mechanics providing repair services for a song, petty shop-keepers and so on, along with the farming fraternity toiling in the fields, together accounting for God-knows-how-many-millions (could be a billion) are virtually left to divine mercy.

Life of the country’s people in the aforementioned sections after they cross their prime working age cannot be described in words. The nation’s haves may have to empathise with the havenots to bring about the urgently required makeover in the wellness of its workforce.