While some unscrupulous people are fleecing families of the Covid-afflicted, there are many ordinary folk acting with great compassion in helping the suffering people with free medical supplies and essential services, says SEEMA MUNIZ
A friend from Norway wrote, “In Covid times, patience, self-care and compassion should come in first-aid kits for everyone.” And right she is. In the capital city of our nation, while on the one hand, people were dying of oxygen shortage, on the other, there were ruthless profit-mongers hoarding cylinders and clandestinely selling them at exorbitant prices. So much so that the mounting incidents of oxygen being sold in the black market in India, became the butt of a joke on Trevor Noah’s The Tonight Show on NBC.
Yet, what didn’t hit the headlines was the generosity of Manoj Gupta, the owner of Rimjhim Ispat Factory in UP, who was filling up empty cylinders for a rupee each to help in the treatment of Covid-positive patients.
Similarly, the private ambulances in the capital region were all out making a fast buck by maximising on the emergency situation and charging desperate people tenfold the usual amount to ferry them from point A to point B. And, if that was not enough, the rate could increase manifold if the hospital did not have a bed readily available and the patient was coerced to wait it out in the ambulance.
Yet, 34-year old Javed Khan of Bhopal, a small-time autorickshaw-walla decided to equip his vehicle with an oxygen cylinder, sanitisers and over-the-counter medications in order to carry Covid patients to hospital, for free. When Javed saw the havoc being unleashed by Covid, he just stopped carrying passengers for business.
Instead, determined to do something to address the worsening situation, he converted his three-wheeler into a small ambulance, using up his own savings. And now he devotes his time and energy taking patients to the hospital for free, and in an emergency situation, even administering oxygen and paracetamol.
The Jain International Trader’s Organization (JITO), in association with the Greater Chennai Corporation, has launched an Oxygen on Wheels service, a free facility for patients in critical condition, queuing up for admission outside government hospitals. Buses laden with oxygen concentrators, each able to handle six patients at a time, are deployed along with an operating 24/7 helpline.
The year 2020, which could also be termed as the year of the migrant worker, witnessed the generosity of common people towards those in need. Several names come to mind, such as the two Pasha brothers, local banana merchants from Kolan district in Karnataka, who sold their plot to feed jobless daily wage labourers, returning home in penury.
Even though many such stories of everyday people rising to the occasion to help their fellow-beings abound, among celebrities, the one name that has flashed oft and again across our television screens is that of Sonu Sood, a Bollywood actor. He stole the limelight with his remarkable outreach programme, carried out with the aid of a growing team of 45,000 volunteers.
Not only did he succeed in organising buses to help ease the migrant crisis in the wake of the sudden 2020 lockdown, but he is right at this moment actively involved in saving thousands of lives of those circumstantially left out by an overly burdened healthcare system.
If people, rich and poor, can step out of their comfort zones to help those in need, imagine if our Central and State governments had had the far-sightedness and will to do something to alleviate the suffering of the people, then we wouldn’t have been in this supreme quandary that we are in today.
If our central government were not so preoccupied with a formidable religious project, or in a brand new Parliament building, maybe we could have turned more spaces into Covid-treatment centres, manufactured more ventilators, and erected more facilities to fill oxygen cylinders. Then our ambition to be recognised as a force to reckon with, would truly have been fulfilled, all while saving the lives of thousands of people.
It is time we realised that we will achieve Superpower-hood not by owning state-of-the-art fighter planes, hi-tech submarines, and a world-class competent army, along with a billion dollar space programme but by ensuring that 1.3 billion people of this country have access to potable water, food, clean air, a green and invigorating environment, and basic health care. And yes, a functional garbage collection and recycling system.
The acceptance that the fulfilment of the basic needs of every citizen should figure as the topmost priority in every government’s agenda, demands not only vision, but also patience and compassion.
Seema Muniz, a feature writer with the Times of India group in the nineties, is an avid reader and educationist, who homeschooled her son until tenth grade, while drifting between New York and Alaska with her family. She is also an artist, with a few solo and group shows in Albany, NY, to her credit.
(Featured Image: An oxygen langar outside a gurdwara in Ghaziabad)