Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

You don’t know this, but when I write the first words of this newsletter every week, they are ‘Dear reader’. But you probably read ‘Good Morning’ followed by your name every edition. It’s just the style we follow—both more personal, and a little formal perhaps. 

Why am I sharing this with you today? Because one of Taylor Swift’s songs is stuck in my head—Dear Reader, from the American singer-songwriter’s latest album Midnights. 

I recommend it. It’s a poignant confession, from a storyteller to their audience. (Also, if you have any music recommendations, do send them to me. I’d love to listen.) 

Anyway, Dear Reader is all about the storyteller-audience connection, but our main topic this edition is more about the third aspect of narrative building—the story itself. And this one has one of the most archetypal of plots: overcoming the monster. 

It’s an all-pervasive narrative-type. Think Harry Potter vanquishing Voldemort. There’s a big strong scary monster hurting everyone. One person embarks on a journey of learning, transforms, and goes on to defeat it. 

And we do face a ‘monster’ like that right now. A problem that’s become omnipresent and seems quite impossible to overcome. The ‘silent pandemic’, the United Nations calls it. 

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). 

Here’s what the World Health Organisation had to say this World Antimicrobial Awareness Week:

Right. 

Big scary monster: check. 

So what about the magic potion that can take it out?

The answer to the silent pandemic is to go back to our roots

On Monday this week, Delhi-based research-driven not-for-profit Center for Science and Environment (CSE) hosted a webinar.