Bollywood icon, Yash Chopra passed away on October 21 with multiple organ failure due to dengue. The death from dengue illustrates the fault-lines of urban and public health planning in India. This has exposed the fast-spreading tentacles of infectious diseases in India, and the appalling state of public health even in the nation’s richest city, Mumbai. The reaction of Mumbai’s municipal body to Chopra’s death is even more revealing, for it betrays a lack of will to reform the city’s faltering public health system.
Chopra will be remembered for his romantic hits hits such as Kabhie Kabhie, Silsila, Chandni and Dil to Pagal Hai.
Courtesy: Hindustantimes.com
Another shocking tragic news last week is the death of Jaspal Bhatti in a fatal road accident. Bhatti's car collided with a tree along the highway while he was on his way to Jalandhar for the promotion of his latest film "Power Cut". Bhatti, 57, was rushed to a hospital in Jalandhar after the accident where doctors declared him dead. His son, Jasraj, was also injured in the accident along with the film's heroine Surili Gautam and another person. They were being treated in a hospital in Jalandhar, 150 km from state capital Chandigarh. An electrical engineer by profession, Bhatti, perhaps the most famous Sikh comedian, had humour and satire in his blood. It was during his days at Chandigarh's prestigious Punjab Engineering College (PEC), also the alma mater of astronaut Kalpana Chawla, that he launched his Nonsense Club in the early 1980s to poke fun at social evils and issues. There was no stopping Jaspal Bhatti from then on. Though he joined the Punjab government as an engineer, Bhatti's heart and soul lay in comedy and satire. Starting as a cartoonist with English daily The Tribune in the late 1980s, Bhatti later came up with the popular "Ulta-Pulta" on national channel Doordarshan. Within no time, Bhatti's satire on social issues became a national hit. He followed it up with another hit TV show, "Flop Show".
|
