Sabr: A care collaborative

On 17th May, Devi joined Nirali’s public health heritage walk, Gratuitous, Curious and Contagious, exploring the medical history of the Fort area of Bombay. Despite the May morning humidity, about twenty of us were hooked for more than two hours with accounts of epidemics and cures – stories that haunt, linger, and surprise. 

Devi hasn’t stopped talking about the walk since. It’s no surprise, then, that in this June edit, Sabr brings you a conversation with Nirali about what draws her to the intersections of medicine, history, and art, and of course Bombay, the city that grounds them together in curious ways.

Nirali is an MD in Radiology whose fascination with what lies beneath the surface extends beyond X-rays to the city itself. Her curiosity about public health and the city’s old battles with disease has led her to see Bombay as a living organism, where traces of compassion, enterprise, and everyday life linger just beneath the dust of the present. This interest has evolved into a heritage walk exploring Bombay’s medical history, as well as “Shared Breath”, an oral history project on tuberculosis undertaken in collaboration with the Citizens Archive of India. Through these efforts, she encourages people to engage more deeply with the city through the lens of public health and discover the many ways in which medicine, society, and urban life have shaped one another over time. 

Shaima and Devi discuss with Nirali what a public health heritage walk means, her oral history project on tuberculosis and her curiosity about health humanities. What could health humanities mean for the overworked healthcare professional: beyond a mandatory module tucked into the syllabus, could it fundamentally reshape clinical decision making? Could health humanities mobilize more interest – perhaps more outrage – in public health?

At Sabr, we join Nirali in asking – about tuberculosis, but also public health more broadly – why aren’t more people talking about this?

Discover more of Nirali’s work here. If you would like to contribute to the Shared Breath tuberculosis oral history project, please connect with Nirali or write to us.

And if you are in Bombay, don’t miss Gratuitous, Curious and Contagious!