I am writing this story as I enter my fifth week of vacation here in India. Having attended two of my very close friends’ weddings and celebrating my grandmother’s 80th and my mom’s 50th birthday parties; this trip started on a very positive note for me. They say if you look you can find positivity even in the darkest and direst of times; it’s just about changing your perspective. And who knew, my perspective of India would change completely as I spent more time here.
During the initial days of my trip, I found ways to validate myself that I did the right thing to immigrate out of India. The slow wifi, the small and crowded spaces, the heat waves, the lack of basic necessities to majority of the people, the trash mountains piling up burnt trash from metropolitan cities without an ounce of care for the environment, the hospitals that had packages based on your budget to give you half-assed or complete care, people who judged you on your looks, weight, hair, skin, skin color, religion, clothes, basically your entire existence, the weird stares of guys idling in the streets looking at every girl that passes by didn’t matter a girl child or an elderly woman, even the most intellectual and educated of them all feeling utterly useless and helpless with unemployment and corruption around, the news channels smoothly scrolling through cases of rape, domestic abuse, accidents and robbery everyday like they are the norm, and the way people just redirected you to the next counter and the next counter and the next counter when you are only trying, trying your hardest to solve problems for yourself and for people who couldn’t speak up — all this validated the very reasons I made the hard decision in my 10th standard to leave India even though things were good for me, people were good, situations were good. I was one of those girls in India who had enough to be grateful for but even then — I felt like I had no room to breathe, no space I could take and when every day feels like a survival it suffocates you.
Fresh air, fresh perspective sometimes helps. As I returned to India for more of a temporary vacation in a half SWADES style, the COVID-19 situation leaving no mark of an end and is making my trip seemingly more permanent than I had thought. And is now changing my perspective for my country — where I once felt suffocated, I am now starting to see optimism.
COVID-19 started to make me think about what would happen if India got sick when it could not afford. Think about 1.3B people where only about 1% would have access to the care comparable to what you would get in China, America or Canada. And when even the countries with the best care are unable to stop the spread of coronavirus with extreme measure like lockdowns, the chances of surviving through a pandemic look very slim for a developing country. Might as well quit and YOLO. The amount of positivity and responsibility that I saw today by the citizens at a large scale, all for the country, is what surprised me the most.
To put things in perspective, for every 1000 people China has 4.3 beds, the US has about 2.8 beds and India — well if you could not spot it on the list — is at the very bottom with 0.5 beds per 1000 people. That is not even a full bed! But like I said, even in the most depressed of situations there are glimmers of hope, you only have to look for them. I am starting to realize that is also sort of the Indian attitude. The very foundational growth mindset that helped me score state rank in my high school board, that pushed me to an Ivy-league school and that led me to even start my own business. Optimism is what got me through tough times and only now I was starting to see where I got it from.
March 22nd — India declared a nationwide Junta Curfew. A single day where the PM urged everyone to stay home in order to test a concept with 1.3B people, a fragile economy, and an “under-constructed” health care system.
It was a big day for the entire country. A country where majority of economy runs on manual labor, work from home is not an option. We didn’t call in our driver or our maid, all the personnel who helped with our home were to stay in their own homes where they would be safe. But would rest of the country follow this? That was the big question.
The news this morning came to me as a surprise. India flew in about 250 passengers from Italy, mostly Indian students stuck abroad; I was surprised at how confident this country could be to take such measures and be so “reckless” at times when we were following the rules like good citizens. I started thinking that my question and our attempts were stupid and foolish. That the optimism was in vain.
I spent the rest of the day, taking this curfew as a one-time experiment that will fail miserably. At least, I was able to watch a few movies and spend some quality time with my family. Flash forward to 2 pm, I lean outside our balcony to spot if there are any people on the roads, to my surprise — absolutely nobody and absolutely deserted. 3 hours go by and I start to hear noises of bells, celebrations, cheers from outside of my house. Its 5 pm — the end of the curfew, people could safely now walk outside. I turn on the television to hear that the curfew was 100% success, most people stayed home as they were ordered. And on the down side, I also hear that we now have to continue to do this for about a week. A strict lockdown of 75 districts in India, one unfortunately being Hyderabad; my hometown. But I also cannot help but think what would have happened had they not followed orders, had people just gone on their “spring breaks” to Florida because you know “YOLO”. Would India be the next Italy or even worse?
Although today started with me thinking about figuring out an end date for my stay here, as the sun set I was left with a feeling of hope for what may be the truest test of times for India. At 300 confirmed cases, India is entering shutdown that many of the developed countries issued at >10K cases. On top of these measures, India has stopped the export of surgical and cotton masks, some hospital equipment like ventilators to protect its own citizens. Every channel now scrolls important coronavirus updates, every phone call urges citizens to stay at home, every billboard has the symptoms written in local languages, and every traffic officer holding signs to “stay home and stay safe.”
I have never seen the country so united to fight a battle against this deadly virus. I guess 99% of the population who cannot afford care already know and can foresee a dark future. They know that when/if their family member does get sick, saving them will be a miracle as they navigate counter after counter after counter. And the remaining 1% that is “privileged” and can fast-track through the counters is I guess grateful and responsible enough to understand the message that is out loud and clear — THAT INDIA SIMPLY CANNOT AFFORD TO GET SICK.
