Life has to move on

Pandit Nehru lost hi wife and Jinha his own life due to the then deadly disease called tuberculosis. Nehru was in jail when the condition of his wife Kamla Nehru then under treatment in Germany worsened. He was released from prison and flew to Germany to be with her. She died in 1936.

Jinha’s illness was closely guarded secret, except his doctor, no one knew. A year after the partition Jinnah died to TB. TB was both infectious and contagious disease, it had no treatment till the vaccine BCG came somewhere in 1950.

I remember anyone having TB was asked to avoid social contact use separate food utensils, a bowl containing ash placed near his cot for the sputum. Most of my grandfather’s close relatives died of TB in 30’s many of them were put up in a sanitorium in Bhowali.