Graveyard Of Dreams In Bihar: The Story Of Soni Kumari

In Phanishwar Nath Renu’s short story Thes, the protagonist Sirchan asks the narrator, “Meri gharwaali zinda rahti tou main aise durdasha bhogta? (If my wife was alive today, would I have gone through this?). This year is Renu’s birth centenary, and just 15 km from his village in Bihar’s Araria, three orphans wake up every morning with a similar question, ever since their parents succumbed to Covid in May this year. Five months later, their grandmother, their sole remaining guardian, also passed away.  Those left behind in the fam­ily now are Soni Kumari (19), Nitish (15), and Chandani (13)—three youngsters left to face life’s struggles alone.

Their father, Birendra Mehta, was the local ‘physician’; a self-styled doctor who prescribed allopathic medicine to the village folk without training or license. He was just 40 when he was infected with coronavirus while treating infected people. Soon after, his wife Priyanka, 32, was also found to be Covid-positive. The children rushed their parents to a private nursing home in neighbouring Purnia district, selling a piece of land and a goat to raise money for their treatment. But Mehta’s condition had worsened by then and he passed away soon after at the hospital.