Our New Villans!!

I was recently shocked and terrified coming to know about this thing which am gonna narrate here. There was this guy Dhesingh (name changed for obvious reasons) who was a newspaper delivery boy for our area. I live in this place for long and I knew him for quite some time. He lives in nearby slum area and a promising enthusiastic guy from a backward community making into a government arts college and finishing his B.A in history. His dad works as a security personnel in a flat here.

Days were happy for his family having got placed in a company and a typical charming arts college student was seen in him until one day. He was diagnosed with initial stages of cancerous growth of thyroid tissue. He doesn’t smoke and chances for pancreatic cancer are also not that deep. Neither their parents had this nor his ancestors. On deep investigation we were informed a reason on hearing which I was surprised initially. Almost 75% of that slum lives in asbestos sheet woven houses. Doctors terming that as one of the rarest occasion that a person getting the initial signs and symptoms of a cancer because he inhales air filled with trace amounts of rare asbestos oxides.

His dad brought the reports to my mom and branding me as a bioengineer, she asked me to go through those believing that I would infer something from that. Poor mom!! Later, I got a chance to speak with him itself. Well that was quite informative as well. Atmospheric oxygen reacts with asbestos and it forms oxides that on continuous inhalation induce cancer. He is living in that slum right from his birth and God only knows why particularly him?

Those days we use ceramic muddy roofing in conventional houses where people got enough non toxic air to inhale and holes in that provided lighting and ventilation. During rain, the water drains perfectly into a place due to the slant type make. Well this asbestos bestows us with all disadvantages. Ever imagined a mid day under one asbestos sheet? It’s horrible I tell you!! Well I went to his place and realized the asbestos filled area. It’s cheaper than all other roofing substitutes, they said. At least now I hope they would learn a lesson with this sorry state of my friend.

Many countries banned this carcinogenic material while we still are thinking about this. Poor us!! I did know how to console him. But, I was taken into surprise. He was cheerful. He is taking tablets regularly and he is under periodical monitoring. He has decided to shift his family to a village near a placed called Uthramerur and He says he will ask people to stop using this kind of roofing. He is going to change his house roof in his first month salary. A hut has a threat of catching fire and it is banned after a kumbakonam incidence. Now I can’t make out for the Govt is waiting for? A mass cancer epidemic?!!

Well it’s high time that we realize it was epidemics like plague cholera and small pox last century and now it’s the time of villains like the cancer diabetes and depression!!! Well I posted this for you guys to think and decide what you could contribute here!!