This will be a subdued Eid for all of us in India, trapped as we are in this deadly second wave of a pandemic. Growing up, we would joke about how Eid is an incredibly boring festival, with its saving grace being food. Only after spending many Eids away from home have I realised how wrong I was. I was so attached to the little traditions– the moon sighting, the early mornings, the beautiful clothes, the endless rush of people dropping in to offer their best wishes well into late hours of the night. This year, I am in the UK for Eid. This is not my first Eid away from home or away from my country. I have always been remarkably unaffected by the homesickness that affects most international students abroad. However, somehow, this year the absence hits differently.
A few days back, I woke up to a steady, dull ache. I saw the time on my phone. 11.30 am. I had overslept after staying up too late last night, watching with relentless horror, scenes from what looked like something straight out of an apocalyptic movie unfolding in real-time in India, as I lay in my bed in a student room in the north-east of Scotland.
I checked my phone. A WhatsApp group called ‘Health Updates’ had streams of concerned messages, prayers and voice notes about my aunt who is hospitalised with COVID. “She is doing better. We are worried but still thanking our lucky stars that we managed to find a bed for her in a hospital.” I opened my social media to see calls from friends and acquaintances asking for leads for admitting people to the hospital, Remdesivir injections, plasma donations, oxygen cylinders, ventilators. I drew the curtains of my window, a bright sun had risen over St Andrews — the weather reflected the mood of a nation that was coming out of a long and desolate lockdown.
At this point, Spring blooms are bursting with colour all over the British Isles, as people are thronging pubs, restaurants, parks. Yes, the weather here sucks balls. However, I have always maintained that the dreariness of the rest of the year is made up for by the summer. I have never in my life experienced something as joyous as an English summer. Yet, this year, neither the prospect of a return to normalcy nor the myriad delights of the season, bring me much joy. My mind is clogged with images of choked hospitals, mass funerals and tear-stained faces back home. The cognitive dissonance is overwhelming.
India has seen more than 20 million cases of COVID-19 over this past year and has recently seen a deadly surge in cases with its second wave of the disease. Three months ago, the international press was wondering if India had somehow beaten the pandemic. I found myself trapped in self-isolation with the rest of the UK when the new variant hit the country. I was initially sceptical of this newfound lack of caution and eventually, just desperately jealous of everyone’s freedom back in India. In this period, the United Kingdom, after dragging its feet with the new strains circulating in the country, steadily vaccinated over half its population. The vaccination drive in India, which started in January, has only fully vaccinated 3 per cent of the population so far despite the fact that it is one of the largest vaccine suppliers to the rest of the world.
Today, instead of boomerangs of friends partying in Goa or grabbing lunches in crowded malls, I see only calls for help on my feed. I see bizarre visuals of the biggest hospital in Ahmedabad, the capital of Prime Minister Modi’s home state, Gujarat, choc-a-bloc with patients to such an extent that 40 ambulances lie waiting outside the building. I refresh my Instagram, corpses are being cremated on the footpaths of major Indian cities. I check my DMs, it is a friend asking if I know of any resources she can forward to someone’s parents trying to access medical help in Lucknow or Ranchi. I see tweets of people trying to process their trauma of losing a loved one they have lost to this pandemic.
“We can overhear that she is comforting someone for what sounded like another loss on that call. The maulvi just removes his earphones and wraps up his sermon—he does not ask this person to mute herself. He is forgiving, too.”
It is 4 pm. I attend the funeral of a relative on Zoom, a great aunt, my mother’s. She lost her life to the disease, despite having received the first dose of the vaccine. Grieving members of my mother’s vast family meet online, solemnly attending a funeral from behind a screen. The maulvi tells us that every death is a reminder to live a more pious life. Unlike those who have departed, we still have the time to change our ways. Allah is Forgiving. Allah is Merciful.
Someone’s mic is on — a female voice is having a full conversation on the phone that everyone can hear embarrassingly clearly, while the maulvi carries on talking about the struggles of Husayn and his family’s indomitable strength in the face of all odds during the battle of Karbala. We can overhear that she is comforting someone for what sounded like another loss on that call. The maulvi just removes his earphones and wraps up his sermon — he does not ask this person to mute herself. He is forgiving, too.
I have a PhD deadline that I need to meet and yet here I am, writing this article with the fervent dedication my thesis rarely invites. I keep endlessly scrolling through my feed, consuming each terrifying statistic in the news, amplifying resources, messaging friends and family members who are affected by the devastation brought about this disease in big and small ways.
Finally, I come across a post by the comic Prashasti Singh called ‘Notes from Zombieland’. She describes the scene at a hospital in Lucknow, where her mother is battling COVID; she writes, in chilling detail, of people running and grabbing the available oxygen cylinders to provide to their loved ones. I cannot take it anymore—it has been an exhausting day.
I break down in tears, not even for myself or my family, but for the friends, the vague acquaintances, the nameless, faceless people of my country who are in so much pain.
It was barely two weeks ago that the democratically elected emperor of India, Narendra Modi, overseeing the destruction of his country, continued to carry out political rallies (much like his opponents) for the state elections in West Bengal, one of the states worst hit by the pandemic. While this second wave is being portrayed by most of India’s sycophantic media channels as solely a result of the laxity on the part of individuals, it is, in reality, very much a state-sponsored pogrom. The government actively encouraged pilgrimage to the Kumbh Mela, a massive Hindu festival, which saw around 3.5 million devotees make a beeline to Haridwar, an ancient, holy city in the foothills of the mighty Himalayas. This approach is in glaring contrast to the events from last year when the government and the press blamed Muslims for trying to spread the virus by committing ‘corona jihad’, in the light of a religious meeting held by Jamaat-e-Islami that was held in Delhi in early March 2020. The government had officially described COVID-19 on 13 March 2020 as ‘not a health emergency’ in India. Modi’s Hindu nationalist vote bank would not usually appreciate this comparison and yet, even many of them cannot help but note the blatant double standards. Memes, the collective coping mechanism of the internet age, joke about Modi fans repeating their oft-repeated phrase in response to any of his previous failures, ‘If Modi has done this, it must be for a good reason.’ Vaccines are being distributed unequally across states, disadvantaging those ruled by opposing parties.
I rant angrily about the situation back home to anyone who would bother to hear. My new friends in the UK offer me a patient hearing, suggesting ice creams to cheer me up. The ice creams, the clear skies, the shimmering blue sea do cheer me up, albeit temporarily. My phone notifications are still buzzing. I keep an eye on the ‘Health Updates’ group chat for any further details about my aunt.
The masochist that I am, I cannot resist the urge to check my phone constantly, to stay updated, to see if everyone is doing okay, to share my anger. ‘There is no justice in this world!’, I text a friend after returning home. Here I was, having a breakdown on a Sunday afternoon because I saw something sad on Instagram. Again. I tell people how sad I am, how I can do nothing but despair and friends can say nothing to console me. I cannot function, I tell my friend, who has tested positive, is immunosuppressed, stuck in self-isolation and is monitoring her vitals thrice a day. It is ironic, I realize, that I am complaining about my COVID induced anxiety to someone who has got the virus, and is significantly more at risk than others her age, as someone with an already compromised immune system. I want her to therapise me. Now.
She texted back, ‘Shut the news, Zehra. It is a gutter, but people are managing. This government doesn’t give a damn, but people do. Frontline staff are working day and night, people are compiling resource lists to help those in need. Knowing it won’t change a thing. I know it sounds naive but that’s the only way to keep sanity. Focus on what you can do instead of thinking about what they, who are supposed to be doing aren’t doing. The government will not—they don’t care. Better to accept. Take action and spread joy, the world needs that.’
Spread joy. Trite as the sentiment seems to be, maybe that’s all I have.
The implementation of restrictions, if any, has been left mostly to state governments and local authorities, who are woefully unprepared for the crisis and scrambling about managing the political considerations of the powers that be in the centre with the urgent demands for support by locals constituents. Faced with an uncaring government, Indian citizens have taken to providing support in their own hands. The internet is now flooding with resource lists compiled by ordinary citizens, providing people with numbers, plasma donation lists, supply for life-saving drugs, amplified by journalists, activists, academics, influencers and regular people on the internet. Case in point, Kusha Kapila. An Instagram comedian and actress, she, like many others, is using the power of her 1.6 million followers to provide COVID relief. Her stories wherein she is connecting plasma donors to patients are interspersed with reels of her comedy sketches, the antics of her puppy Maya and shout outs to glamorous model/influencer friends. Jarring as the dissonance is to some, it is also important work. She is saving lives; even spreading some smiles. Some would say that this is more than what the Prime Minister is currently doing.
I lost my aunt. She was a single parent, raising her college-going daughter and selflessly caring for an ageing mother-in-law. Mumaani was a warm and affectionate woman of quiet fortitude, who taught me it was possible to smile through adversity without ever letting that pain define who you are. A teacher, a mother, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, an aunt, a sister. A human being can have so many roles exist in such a complex web of relations — so many people for whom that individual provides some indispensable, irreplaceable function.
Of all her nieces and nephews, her love for Bollywood films rubbed off on me the most. While the rest of the family was mildly alarmed by my penchant of being clued in to all the latest Bollywood gossip and hours of filmy discussions, Mumaani indulged me. She would spoil us with presents and food, impromptu trips to Aligarh’s noisy markets and cinema halls. It was only after her death that it registered in me that she wasn’t related to me by blood, there was no expectation on her to pamper us so. She just did. My school vacations were spent in our family home, ‘Aiman’, built lovingly, brick-by-brick by my grandfather. She was the person who made that building a home. As a result of her passing, that house, which saw so much, now stands mostly empty.
I attended another Zoom majlis, this time barely registering what the maulvi was saying. This was what grieving in a pandemic. Doomscrolling, memories, Zoom calls and tear-stained faces on grainy video calls.
Mumaani’s daughter, my cousin, posted an IGTV on the poet Rilke and grief, with a single, unchanging visual of a leafy courtyard and a gate left with its doors ajar. Even in her unimaginable grief, she reveals stoicism, creativity and wisdom. A combination that perhaps only the internet makes possible.
I still believe that if India comes out of this pandemic, it will be due to the efforts of individuals who went above and beyond to do far more than expected, with no thanks to the government. People who shared leads, people who generously donated to help support groups working day and night on the ground, people who expressed their anger and frustration at the government, people who called out corruption and neglect. Their memories must be protected, their dissent registered, the names of culprits catalogued. This archive will not be destroyed.
Ramzan, the holy month of Muslims all over the world, comes to a close. Overwhelmed by an uncharacteristic connection to the divine, I find myself pulling out my prayer mat to offer namaaz — praying for my country. Allah is Forgiving. Allah is Merciful.
Zehra Kazmi is pursuing a PhD in South Asian writing and nostalgia at the University of St Andrews. This article was originally posted on her blog. She tweets @ZebrasAreKool .
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