Of lost livelihoods, shattered families

The first wave of Covid-19 pandemic left lakhs of people devastated due to the fear of unknown, unpreparedness and uncertainty. A year of fighting and preparations later, cases continue to overwhelm the system in the second wave and uncertainty remains a constant. The contagion has by now directly or indirectly hit most if not all homes, causing either loss of lives or livelihood. Or both. Four people who have encountered Covid-19 in close quarters tell Komal Gautham how it’s an ongoing fight
He’s tormented by wails of the grieving
VDinakaran has been working at the Kannammapet crematorium for a decade now, but not once until now has the grief hit home so hard. The number of bodies he cremates has increased five-fold and the pain and grief he sees every day has got to him, he says. “The grief is so much that I am unable to shed tears. We try to console families, but the pain is too much to handle.” He says he has not been able to eat or sleep properly for two months. Just last week, he cremated a 27-year-old man and the wife was inconsolable. “The bodies come straight to the crematoriums and cannot be sent home due to Covid. So the families cry so much that it haunts us. The young man had not even started his life.” Until January, only about 4-5 bodies were cremated a day. But now, there are 25-30 bodies a day, out of which at least 15 are Covid deaths, he says. Dinakaran and three others work from 8am to 10pm, reach home at 11pm and we cannot even fall asleep after the day we have. Before we snap out of it, we are back at the crematorium,” he said. Many times, the entire family tests positive and there is no one to accompany the bodies to the crematorium. “The loved ones send a letter through the ambulance driver saying they can’t come and request us to perform the last rites. We do it,” Dinakaran says. Watching the bodies burn, we only pray that no one else should die of Covid again, “hope our prayers are answered.”
Going on when your life’s on line
A staff nurse at RGGGH, Sheeba bids her family farewell every morning before she leaves for work - she says she never knows if she’d return. “I am 41 years old and I have been a nurse for 23 years. But I have never faced this much pain, stress and tiredness in my life. The past two months have been very tough, I saw two of my colleagues die of Covid in the past two weeks. So I am prepared for everything,” she says. Sheeba starts her day at 3.45am and cooks for her family before she leaves at 5.50am. She reaches RGGGH at 7am and starts her routine. She checks in on her patients – all 178 she is in charge of. “Every day, I pray that none should die under my watch, but at least 10 or 12 die on my floor. We don’t even have time to grieve or console the kin as we have to move on to the next patient. Officially, her shifts should last six hours but she works twice as long. “At the end of the day, I have no strength left after standing for 12 hours straight. We wear masks, PPEs and sweat profusely; we’re thirsty all the time. But we have stopped drinking water as we cannot take toilet breaks and we need to change the masks, PPEs and go through all safety protocol again,” she said. She often skips lunch to attend to a patient and her family is worried for her, but what hurts most is when families of patients are rude to her, says Sheeba. “Covid death calls for a lot of procedures and it causes delays a few times. Attenders of the patients are rude and sometimes even abuse us. It hurts when they do that to us after we tried to console and give them all the hope we can, we even pray for improvement each time an X-ray or CT scan is done,” she says. “I just hope things get better soon.”
Picking up pieces after sons’ deaths
Shattered is how A K Gupta, a resident of Nanganallur and father of twins, describes his mental state. The Gupta family, until April last week, led a life largely untouched by the pandemic. The two weeks that followed brought him unimaginable grief – he lost his 41-year-old sons Kishore Kumar Gupta and Mahendra Kumar Gupta (in pic) to Covid-19. Kishore, older by 10 minutes, showed symptoms of high blood sugar levels and went in for a regular check-up but was tested positive. “Since he had comorbidities, he had to get hospitalized. I took Kishore in an ambulance to three private hospitals in 24 hours but none would admit him, they lacked beds or specialists,” says Gupta. On April 27, he finally managed to get a bed in Government Stanley Hospital, but Kishore passed away that afternoon. His entire family got tested and the younger twin, Mahendra Kumar, was positive and developed breathlessness. “I admitted him to a private hospital after much struggle and did not mind the hefty bills – I just wanted my son alive. I stood in line at Kilpauk hospital and paid ₹40,000 to a broker who sold me Remdesivir. But the doctors told me it was a duplicate. After much struggle, I managed to find the anti-viral but they couldn’t save him,”
Gupta said in despair. Mahendra Kumar died on May 8. Adding salt to the pain was the hassle to get the bodies released. “I paid around ₹16 lakh for treatment and hospital procedures were very insensitive.
They didn’t give me the bodies of my sons for two days,” he said. “I don’t have any hope or faith left but I just pray to God to give me strength, I have to care for my daughters-in-law and three grandchildren. How I can run a business at 66?”
Breadwinner’s fight to get 2 meals a day
Though times were tough during the first wave for Jayagopal, he had managed to get back on his feet in January this year and he began repaying the ₹80,000 loan he has to his name. Just months later, the second wave has put him back on an endless path of hardships. Deep in debt and with no income, the 60-year-old is not able to afford two decent meals a day for his family of five. His sons are out of jobs too. “I was just beginning to earn about ₹300 a day in January, after all the struggle last year. I have loans to repay, my auto is a rented one and I have borrowed more money to run the family,” says Jayagopal, adding that his age and risk factors associated keep his hands tied. He used to work with the city corporation, ferrying Covid positive patients to screening centres, but can’t any more. “I borrow money even to buy vegetables daily. It is not just the loans that worry me, the uncertainty about when I can get back my livelihood scares me most,” said Jayagopal, hoping that the new government would provide relief aid so he can run his family for a month.