Coron-->ial Scourge

To see patients suffering from severe cases with various degrees of infections, hearing them howling in pain was quite tough to say the least. More to add, to see souls departing and bodies getting wrapped in polyethylene, paired with a thought ambushing my mind, Am I next in the row!

It was a painful time and one couldn’t shut them out either as everyone was in one room in the ICU. After I shifted to ICU from the Covid ward, when condition deteriorated as the O2 saturation level plummeted to 65, while doctors were reluctant to commit, staying positive was not easy! The hustle-bustle of the hospital and watching emergency situations being dealt with was something I can never forget.

Today after 60 days of my discharge, still been advised to rest for a month more. When I still feel fatigued if I stay up, climb a staircase, walk, talk for a long time, the ferocity of covid returns back!

The relentless fortitude & strength of my wife helped me recover tremendously. When I recovered a bit, but was still on oxygen support, I remember texting her that I want to breathe on my own, Can I again? She used to respond, “you will, You’ve to”. She was Just steady, regardless of the pain, she endured from her inside.

I wouldn’t be able to talk to people as I had the NIV mask, so I would talk in sign language and symbols. Hardly I slept those 30 days as a virulent thought always in my mind, “If I close my eyes, would I be able to open it again”.?

Ten days was all it took for Delhi to buckle under the brutal second wave. No beds, No oxygen. Hospital CEOs had joined ordinary individuals in taking to social media in sheer desperation, pleading for help, broken in ways I can imagine. Opening social media pained me almost physically- death and suffocation and disease were everywhere. The sense of helplessness, of impending doom, was almost heart-breaking.

But I am lucky, we are lucky. We made it. My recovery has been very slow-hit hard by the lack of rest (sleeplessness) and almost overwhelming stress. I had a mild cough, fatigue, and immense weakness for weeks afterward. The brain fog still persists. I am doing my best but there are days-sometimes consecutively -where I have to be reminded about things I would have usually remembered. Anxiety knocks me flat. Insomnia comes and goes. Thanks to Montelukast-Levocetirizine tablets which bring me to sleep for prolonged hours. My mental health skates on thin ice. Recovery! If you can call it that has been indescribable. Exhausting!

I clung on to the comfort of old books and photographs. Memories & stories held my hand in ways that nobody else could while I was recovering at the HDU. But I was not alone. ?An elderly uncle, who fell victim to Covid – Pneumonia vehemently stayed awake all night with me, all nights I was there at HDU. We would talk about life, life after death, about old times, about silly happy hopes for the future.

I admit that the persistent efforts of doctors, nursing staff, and the wishes of a few of my old chums who cheered me up brought me back. I am also thankful to so many friends from the industry who wished me and checked up on me. My joining was due with PwC. I also thank the entire PwC HR fraternity for standing by me. It’s beyond description the way they supported me.

While out of the ICU and inside the HDU ( High Dependency Unit ) I had thought of this article.

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The past April, May & June events have been so tragic, so unspeakably ugly that the only rational response was to pretend it was not happening. The raging second wave of Corona-Virus pushed all forms of lives below norms, be it socio-economical, be it corporate.

Covid will be gone one day. But the citizen’s ordeal & misery, their relentless fight against death & despair must be respected in return, especially by the CORPORATE. The future corporate decisions and policies should not be leaky that gets boomeranged and lead to their abolishment!

As such the decisions should be accountable to and praiseworthy. Up against a wall the corporate has to act & react with staggering wisdom. In the current time our illusion of health, control, invincibility everything has been questioned but I don’t agree with shutting everything down or lowering it to its minuscule version. This is the time for awareness, we have to be socially, psychologically aware, use the time to know how our systems are functioning, and sit down & ponder how we have been responding! It’s important to collectively feel the pain and compassion for each other.

People are getting back to pending work when they are safe! The second wave in India let many people stuck with a feeling of aimlessness or emptiness. It’s exactly not depression, you simply feel aimless there is a word for that -> Languishing. It’s looking at your own world through a foggy windshield. I would definitely not expect to add to the woos of once dedicated contributors.

Today India stands at a staggering 26.5 million cases and nearly 400,000 deaths as of June. Hence we do not need fancy models of recovery, we need a bit of empathy a bit of compassion. Corporate leaders have to showcase such a set of conduct that the employees and future employees will get rid of contagious languishing soon.

Languishing dulls your motivation, disrupts your ability to focus, and triples the odds that you will cut back at work. The antidote is flow- Flow is that elusive state of absorption in a meaningful challenge or momentary bond, where the sense of completeness plays a vital role. It’s a clarion call to corporate leaders to add to the completeness of their employees and let the flow happen. Let existing and future employees find new challenges, offering them meaningful work, with enjoyable experiences are the possible remedies to languishing.

On social media, things are back to normal. You don’t see those panicked calls for help anymore. There are no announcements for oxygen–filling plants and concentrator requests. You don’t read so many obituaries or see photographs of those who left us so soon. But they are there in numbers that you can’t dial anymore, in the voices you will never hear again, in the captures of the burning pyres that met our eyes every morning for three horrible months- in the memories that they have left us with .

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