"When I was growing up in Kashmir, my grandfather would hide me inside his pheran on the coldest days of winter. Bundled together beneath the loose woolen robe, he would tell me stories about Kashmir's Chillai Kalan the 40 harshest days of the year when temperatures plunge below freezing and snow blankets the valley. The phrase is derived from the Persian: Chillai means 40 days and Kalan means grand."
"The pheran (also derived from the Persian, meaning cloak) that loose woolen robe my grandfather wrapped around both of us represents more than warmth. It is a testament to ingenuity born from necessity, typically paired with a kangri, an earthen pot of embers carried beneath the fabric. My ancestors didn't wait for someone from elsewhere to solve their problems. They looked at what they had and engineered solutions that worked."
"I think about this often now, working in global health, where we talk endlessly about innovation and technology. We speak of artificial intelligence as if it were a panacea, capable of revolutionizing health care delivery in the world's most under-resourced communities. And perhaps it can. But watching how quickly we deploy sophisticated algorithms into contexts we barely understand, I am reminded of something crucial: The people living through harsh conditions already know things global health innovators don't."
Chillai Kalan denotes the 40 harshest winter days in Kashmir when temperatures fall below freezing and snowfall feeds rivers for future abundance. The pheran, a loose woolen cloak often paired with a kangri ember pot, provides essential warmth and exemplifies practical, necessity-driven engineering by local communities. Harsh conditions are framed as creating the resources needed to flourish rather than reasons for despair. Contemporary global health conversations often favor high-tech innovations like artificial intelligence, but those living in difficult contexts already possess hard-earned knowledge and low-tech solutions tailored to their environments.
Read at www.npr.org
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