By Sharanya Gopinathan

In May, we provided a list of 20 more TMI questions that SBIs could add to their account opening forms after we saw that they were asking prospective account holders if they were “politically exposed” or not.

Now, the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) in Patna seems to have taken the madness even further. It’s being reported that they’ve issued a form that requires employees to declare whether they are virgins, and how many people they and their spouses are married to.

The form asks you to declare whether you are a “bechelor/widower/virgin”. When asked about the bizarre form by India Today, Dr. Manish Mandal, the Deputy Medical Superintendent said that the form has been a norm since the institute was established, and that it’s similar to the one used in AIIMS Delhi. He does go on to say that the use of the word virgin was incorrect, and that it should have been replaced with the word ‘unmarried’. He said using the word unmarried would have been more “sober”.

Questions of sobriety aside, it still tells you a lot that the words virgin and unmarried are apparently easily switchable, even in medical institutions and hospitals, and shows how so many people and institutions hold on to the belief that people who are not married don’t have sex. This belief is also a large part of the reason why so many Indian women find it so hard to find professional and helpful gynaecologists who don’t make silly assumptions or cast moral judgements on the different kinds of women patients they meet.