In India

From tomorrow things will start to open-up in the UK and as we brace ourselves for reintegrating back into society, going back to how it was, we are also moving forward with our lives. As the age limit slowly cascades down, more and more of us are getting vaccinated; we hear the excited news from friends, one by one, that they too have now received the text and are to be jabbed.

In turn, a series of lucky events; there are new boyfriends, new homes purchased, friends coming back from abroad. A friend commented on how ‘this seems to be good period for a lot of us.’ This feels true as we have taken time out, reinvented ourselves and are ready to go back refreshed and with new vigour. There is going to be a large tax bill and there is Brexit, but those things don’t matter yet, there is life and hope.

And so not even out of lockdown, it’s dawn and the sunshine is already beaming and smiling down at us is in the UK, while across the other side of the world in India, it’s dusk, and all hope is slipping away into the night.

I was on the phone to one of my relatives in India trying to console his weeping heart.

My uncle, my mum’s brother, who is similar to her in age and character had caught coronavirus. Where my mum passed away five years ago, it felt particularly heart-breaking to think that those that share her mannerisms and is part of her own self (and part of myself), are in peril. He was weeping at both the shock and the thought of having been so close. As we shed a tear together, thinking of those that passed and those that are here now, how vulnerable we are as humans and how dear we are to one another.

We may know many people who have had COVID, or even had it ourselves, but the trauma is quite different in India. My uncle painted a picture of chaos where everywhere one looks, ambulances are buzzing, there are yellow tapes outside doorways to mark COVID positive households, in sweltering heat people are fighting for hospital beds and for the medicine that can save them. He told me about my mum’s aunty, who was still relatively young, tested positive in the morning, deteriorated during the day, her son driving her from one hospital to another, desperately trying to get her a bed, only by night she had passed.

Sad stories such as these sway in the wind, touching the hearts of all that can hear them. The mood is sombre on the other side of the globe.

We in the UK are at the stage where we can reflect back on the year we just had. We shed a tear for lives lost, but also in jest roll our eyes at the thought of Boris the Buffoon, the track-and-trace “world beating app” on a 2003 version of Excel, we pat ourselves on the back at the vaccine rollout and thank god we have a free healthcare system and have eternal gratitude to our NHS Heroes.

Modi’s India is playing out quite different; it’s cruel. His Muslim Hindu shameless propaganda, winning elections at the cost of lives, poor decisions. It’s been described as a genocide where the cities are crippled and workers heading back to their respective villages spreading the virus back to their community. With the majority workers being Muslim and the lack of healthcare services in these tiny villages, it’s a pending tragedy. For them, reflecting to a yesterday will feel quite different.

And so as excitement and fervour takes route in UK ad I also march at the collective drumbeat as we finally move forward with our lives, a shadow looms over most British Indians such as myself; I share thoughts and a prayer for my friends and relatives in India who are suffering and so terribly scared.

This needs to be read:

‘We are witnessing a crime against humanity’: Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe | Coronavirus | The Guardian