I’m yet to recognise the year, is it twenty twenty? The most awaited year in the universe. The entire planet used to pitch that perhaps, we may land on moon in 2020 ! I’m surprised, even we ain’t safe on earth! In the first quarter of March, one fine day, I went to my nursing college, in Shireen Bagh. We were about to enter the fourth level of our graduation, curiously waiting for the first lecture to be delivered, all of a sudden, an assistant professor of our college came in and said; “Dear students, the lethal virus has itched the world on toes, the concerned authorities have decided to halt the manual mode of teaching as of now and I request all of you to March to your homes”. Hardly aware of the deadly monster encapsulated in protein, that was going to haunt and terrorize the entire globe, some of my friends wanted to continue. While lending deaf ear to their unprovoked shouting, the respected professor left the class.
After I left the college and marched towards the room, every thing looked normal to me as was evident in the locality of our nursing college. Shops wide open, roads congested with traffic. I didn’t leave for home, I stayed there. In between I used to visit SMHS hospital as my room, where I was stationed was close to the associated hospital. I could see the OPDs jam packed. It’s rightly said until you don’t have a wound on your body, you won’t feel the intensity of situation. Same was with me, perhaps with all the Kashmir. Truly speaking, I wasn’t scared till the time. I never imagined it would reach so quickly, contagiously and engulf the entire globe. Few days later JK administration announced a lock down, but still people didn’t grasp the situation fully.
One fine evening I was at my room in Karan Nagar, suddenly all hell broke loose with news media corporations splashing the headline “JK contracts it’s first covid 19 case, an elderly woman from Khanyaar with some travel history”. The moment I read this, my forehead sweated. While I was recovering from shock, my phone suddenly started ringing. It was my mother on the other side. “Hello, Assalamu Alikum,” I started.
She replied, “Walikum Salaam,” in a slurred speech. I sensed the fear in her words. She hurried, “Son, please come back. The situation is worse.”
I assured her, “It’s all safe, you need not worry.
Somehow, I managed to convince her. But then she was a mother. Next morning as I woke up, Srinagar looked like a garrison to me.
From past four months we have gone through enough literature on covid. I believe that every one knows how is it contracted, the causative organism, the pathological change it brings in, from natality to recovery rate. Here I will speak something different and something much related to it, and how I experienced it personally.
My father sent a vehicle back from village to take me home. I could see the anxious faces every where. Till now, though it claimed less than 0.1% lives all-over the globe, but it left the world with millions of depressive cases, it left the world with out bread, it killed the poor.
Some might argue, it doesn’t discriminate, but I argue, it does kill the poor mostly. The migrant workers died because they were poor. Had they been rich, they wouldn’t have gone to other states in search of labour. I recently came through an article in NY Times where the figures put American blacks as the most who lost their lives to this lethal monster. The article tilted “it’s not obesity, it’s poverty that kill us”, by Sabrina String, a sociology professor argued that The American blacks succumbed to the virus because they are racially discriminated against, they ain’t given that treatment as given to whites.
I craved to live in a city, but this pandemic modified my thought pattern, at least I am able to visit orchards, feel fresh air, I am able to walk by the stream, I’m able to tread for an evening walk. In contrast it wouldn’t have been possible while being in a town or city.
This pandemic has drastically changed the world order. In the month of Ramadan I was standing by the main gate of my house, a TATA motor vehicle loaded with fruit and vegetables was yelling, 3 Kgs of watermelon for a hundred rupees. I stood by the gate till the vehicle passed by and after some ten minutes the same vehicle returned back from the lane, every thing was same but lest one – 5kg’s of watermelon for a hundred rupee. I first had to a big laugh but then it made me think that this brutal virus has made the people and market so fragile.
We ain’t able to breathe. We can’t hug. We can’t share joys together and can’t mourn. We can’t shoulder our loved ones. Then there are cases of domestic abuse. An invincible and invisible enemy has turned everything upside down.
Tawfeeq Irshad Mir is a Level 4 student at Govt College of Nursing, Shireen Bagh, Srinagar.