Will a better human strain emerge after the pandemic ?

 

The Statesman 5 May

The Indian public is trying to cope with the gravest medical crisis in recent history. There is an acute shortage of hospital beds and oxygen, leading to a high fatality rate among Covid patients. Everywhere, people are grieving over the loss of loved ones and there is palpable anger at the lack of preparedness. These shortages which hinder treatment and cost lives make even doctors feel very helpless. Over and above their medical duties, doctors find themselves being pulled in different directions. They are having to get involved in chores such as sourcing scarce oxygen supplies and to get multiple forms signed from relatives. These protect them from liability not related to medicine – such as medicine stocks running out or ICU beds not being available.

Where they were once able to offer comfort and reassurance to most people, they themselves are at their wits’ end. They feel very uncomfortable at having to ask prospective patients to come for admission with their own medicines and cylinders. Outside, at the hospital gates, people wait expectantly, hoping a miracle will happen and an empty ICU bed will surface. Such miracles are rare.

Many people don’t make it to the inside of a hospital and breathe their last on the roadside. Even crematoriums are overburdened and have run out of space. The new mutated virus strain in this wave is causing a lot more medical uncertainty as it is not easily detected anymore. Because the Rt-Pcr tests were designed on the genome of the original strain, they are often not able to detect the presence of the new virus.

Could the virus be having a dormant form like the Varicella Zoster virus (Chicken pox, – which rests in various nerve ganglia and gets active producing shingles years later), when the host immunity is lower or the environment conducive? Maybe this form erupts suddenly once its gestation cycle is complete. Who knows? In India, this massive outbreak has occurred just when the beautiful flowers of spring were blossoming everywhere.

Echoing Darwin’s theory, the virus is trying to survive, by evolving. Whereas evolution in contemporary species is slow, this virus seems to be doing so at supersonic speeds. It also now seems to be taking a faster route to its target organ of choice, the lungs, bypassing the nose and throat areas. And it has cast its net over a much wider area.

We see so many younger people getting infected with Covid compared to the ancestral strain which largely spared the young and healthy.  Matching this uncertainty are various man-made ones. There is uncertainty about the availability of vaccines and their efficacy against newer strains. The data on the disease is not fully reliable or transparent. It does not seem to accurately reflect ground realities.

For example, in many instances, the official death toll has been starkly different from the crematorium records by a factor of 20-25 on some days. Due to this patchy data, it becomes difficult to formulate and test various medical hypotheses.Yet, in the midst of this absolute pandemonium caused by the stealthy attack of the virus, there is a group of people carrying on with their lives with an enviable certainty as if nothing of import has happened.

We have an international cricket league tournament going on towards which already meagre resources are being diverted. People fly off on exotic holidays and post vacation snaps even as journalists post pictures of a profusion of pyres and lines of waiting ambulances.

We have seen elected representatives host crowded public religious events and address large election rallies, totally unmindful of the fact that this can help propagate the virus and spread sickness and death countrywide. This indifference is strange, coming as it does after a severe round of suffering caused by the first wave of the pandemic last year.

Can we really live in a bubble, impervious to what is happening around us? We have suggestions from people to stay happy even as the world around us collapses. Of these, some sensitive souls are truly well meaning. Some others do not want to face reality, and want to bury their heads in the sand. A third group wants to hide reality and diffuse public anger. It may be most healthy to allow feelings and moods to play out in people in their own natural way.

Hiding rage and grief beneath an artificial veneer of inappropriate cheerfulness may adversely impact minds already traumatized with worry and sorrow. A false sense of security may also cause people to lower their guard. Accepting harsh reality may render us better placed to deal with it. Far worse than callousness, are those trying to profiteer from the grim situation.

We have medical vendors who are building up their personal fortunes by selling oxygen cylinders and medicines at highly inflated prices, while people desperately fight to save their loved ones. We even have priests who have hiked rates fourfold for performing the last rites of the deceased. For immediate redressal of the black marketing in medical commodities, the answer is likely very straightforward – the products should be made freely available.

A simple regulation can be made for suppliers and chemists to not sell more than a limited amount to an individual buyer to ensure a more equitable distribution and pre-empt hoarding. The huge amounts of foreign aid in the form of medical supplies coming into India from countries all over the world needs to be transparently documented by customs and distributed to the most vulnerable. The public will feel very reassured if they can track the life-saving goods directly.

Not everything, however, can be painted black. We are also witnessing models of selflessness. People rallying round to help others. There is a sea of concerned humanity, people sharing resources with each other- literally saving lives and stepping in wherever the need arises. Gurdwaras have been at the forefront of providing free oxygen to the community and NGOs are back in action distributing free meals.

Despite having faced severe scrutiny and an acute depletion of funds due to complex regulatory laws, NGOs have still bounced back. Even in an extremely weakened state they are standing tall and inspiring everyone with their work ethic and abundant social responsibility. In fact, in his public address on combating Covid, a prominent leader appealed chiefly to civil society groups and NGOs to help turn the tide. What would undoubtedly add punch to this effort would be for the leaders to themselves lead by example – in terms of wearing masks and ensuring distancing when addressing the public.

The pandemic has brought out both the generous as well as the selfish sides of humans – ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ as the title of a popular Western movie goes. In this macabre dance for survival, hope springs eternal that it is the human species that survives. That it can mutate into a superior species after its literal trial by fire. Our fervent hope is that the new human variant can live in a responsible manner and in greater harmony with each other and with nature. Apart from healthcare resources, what human behaviour patterns prevail may well decide the fate of mankind during and after this pandemic.

(The writer is a Delhi-based medical practitioner)

As Special as a Woman

 The Statesman, March 2021

International Women’s day will be celebrated on 8^th March this year, and as always, one’s thoughts turn towards women. We reflect on their struggles, their achievements, and their sometime extraordinary lives. The theme for International Women’s day 2021 is -Women in leadership: achieving an equal future in a COVID 19 world. I laud some unsung leaders who take the reins of life firmly in their capable hands.

 The first are the girls and women who work in fields, or rear cattle, to keep their homes and hearths running. It seems an ordinary enough life, but in actual fact they effortlessly tackle a daily spectrum of tough challenges. Women in the hills rise early and take their goats for grazing on mountainsides. Armed with sickles, they climb up on trees to cut branches and leaves for a rainy day, while the goats contentedly graze on the grass below. They are compelled to go out and face the elements -rain, hail or snow, and maintain their balance on slippery slopes, to keep their herd well-fed. Not for them the protective gear that professionals or sportsmen enjoy - golfing gloves to grip smooth irons better or the cricket shin pads that save muscular legs from the thump of a hard ball. In the olden days, it was the men who were considered the hunter-gatherers, but women play that role now. A lady in our caretaker’s family, Asha Devi, once bravely snatched her goat back from the jaws of a leopard. Of course, the goat was cooked for dinner by the poor family as it was too badly injured to survive.

In the plains, many young women face perils of a different sort when they go to gather the crops. The predators here can have a more human form. One hears unfortunate tales of many a young girl who is accosted while out in the fields alone or harmed by a stalker whose feelings she didn’t reciprocate. Ancient drawings depict young warrior men heading home after the hunt with animal carcasses slung on their backs. Now we see young girls on village roads heading back with the household water carried on their strong heads and shoulders.

 In the urban areas too, very young girls are literally holding the fort. We had an eye camp in Khora colony recently at a school for underprivileged children. I was concerned whether the children would be able to carry their camp documents home safely to their parents and not lose them. The principal assured me that some children are so responsible that they manage their entire household, even locking the dwelling prior to departure, themselves. She narrated stories of young children who cooked and looked after their alcoholic fathers and other siblings after the demise of their mother. It was remarkable, as also a testimony to her commitment that these children somehow showed up at school daily, even with all these burdens on their young shoulders.

All these women, young and old, keep the wheels of life turning. Despite this, the prevailing social circumstances do not allow women to take pivotal decisions pertaining to their lives. Rigid stereotypes still exist of their destinies being governed by hookah wielding patriarchs sitting comfortably under trees while women face exclusion and marginalization in decision making.

The second group I would like to laud are the fearless and feisty women activists who have been at the forefront of several popular protest movements in India. Many have been subjected to media trolling, bullying by the local authorities and undeserved jail sentences. I have a deep respect for activists because of their high level of empathy for others and their sense of justice which makes them work selflessly. Among many others, we had activists like Pinjra Tod NGO members, Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita, fighting for the security of immigrants in far-off states, though they are themselves based in Delhi. I saw a news clip on Natasha’s father (she lost her mother as a child) where he speaks so fondly and proudly of his daughter’s gender related activism. It was very moving. Though many people stand loyally with family and friends through their upheavals; it is activists who are the refuge of strangers in trouble.

History is replete with stories of activists who made great personal sacrifices for the good of the community. Like Nangeli of Cherthala village of Kerala, a poor Ezhava woman who cut off her breasts with a sickle when she was forced to pay tax for the ‘luxury’ of being allowed to cover them (only higher caste women were allowed to cover their breasts in Travancore in those days, anyone else doing so, was taxed). Her actions led to the abolition of the tax.

What is ironical is that people who spend millions advertising their products and lobbying officials to increase their own net worth, are deemed ‘successful’ in society, but activists who work to bring in changes that improve the quality of life of thousands are held in disdain by authorities for their social lobbying.

 The third group I would like to focus on are housewives. A friend gave me a lovely definition of a mother as ‘someone who can contain you’. Indeed, housewives have been the glue holding large joint families together and the generous sponges soaking up the disappointments faced by spouses and children. Like alchemists they turn the nadirs in their families’ lives into opportunities, hope and even positive outcomes through sheer strength of effort and character.  Housewives work long hours without payment and even without adequate recognition at times. They learn to draw their sustenance from the welfare and happiness of their families. A recently released movie ‘The Great Indian Kitchen’ highlighted exquisitely the monotonous and relentless drill in the kitchen that some housewives follow day in and day out, till they are literally ready to drop with exhaustion at the end of a long day of chores.

In the times of the COVID pandemic housewives have faced exceptional challenges – increased demands on their time from family members confined to the home, the frayed nerves and tempers of relatives displaced by the turn of events, increased incidents of domestic violence and reduced outlets for relaxation for themselves (in the form of friends or outings). Yet they have soldiered on, graciously believing that they have not been singled out, that others are facing their own challenges during the pandemic. As always, they think empathically of others.

In the professional world, a lot of care and enormous amounts of time go into apportioning credit for work done, and dealing with the angst of professionals who feel they did all the work but someone else got the pay hike or promotion. Yet at home, the same detail of appreciation is rarely meted out by the ‘head of the family’ or other members to the Atlas- like woman holding up the family’s personal world on her shoulders.

On International Woman’s day 2021, let us celebrate each and every woman as a special being with an important role to play in the changing world. That means shattering the barriers that hold back women. Let us truly hope that this women’s day is a turning point where women find a greater respect for their voice, their work, their thoughts and get to realize their full potential.