Here, the companies promise "flexible hours" like my sister hears from the big hospitals, but then it just means her shift is split into two strange parts, yaar. My mother's hands never got any 'redistribution' of the housework, arthritis or not. You manage it yourself, case by case, or it doesn't get done.

Ah, yaar, this talk of the village losing its doctor… reminds me of my mother back in the village. Her arthritis—I can hear her wincing on the phone, but the nearest government hospital is forty kilometres, and the bus comes only twice. Here in Ludhiana, we have a factory doctor for the night shift, but for her? Only the neighbour’s son with a rattling Maruti, if he is not too drunk. They say the numbers show a doctor for every ten thousand, but numbers don’t make a scooter ride at 3am when the pain is bad.