COVID pestilence. One year since second wave

India in April-May 2021 went through debilitating COVID second wave. Delta variant washed through the masses causing havoc and misery. Atleast five hundred thousand Indians died during COVID second wave. I tested COVID positive on April 28, 2021. My wife also tested positive couple of days later. Thankfully COVID didn't touch my parents and children. One year had passed since COVID second wave. I had only mild symptoms and never had to be hospitalized. Fear of mortality certainly haunted me in first couple of days. I lost several of my friends and well wishers during COVID second wave. I learnt several lessons during the sickness and I am mentioning some of them here

1. Family comes first, second, third....: In Delta wave entire health care system broke down. There is scarcity of everything from oxygen cylinders to hospital beds to essential medicines to doctors. Everybody was left to fend for himself and only immediate family was there to support. Fundamental unit of humanity is family and not individual. Sometimes in daily grind, one forgets the value of family. One rises and falls with the family. Nobody rises despite the family. Government and public institutions are at best facilitators. Family is the strong anchor around which life is built and nurtured. Delta wave reinforced this learning for me. Concept of nation-state is relatively a new idea and has been in existence only for a few centuries while the institution of family has been there for thousands of years. Feeling loved and loving somebody is a wonderful thing and COVID crisis brought home the point again.
2. Prepare for mortality: There is a sequence in Mahabharata called Yaksha Prasna. One of the questions posed is what is the most wonderful?. Yudhistira answers "Every day numerous living entities are dying and going to the abode of Yama. Yet one thinks/believes one will live remain forever (Immortal). What can be more wonderful than this?" I lost one of my friends named Tulasi Tirupathi in Sep 2020. Tulasi had COVID infection and died within few weeks. I had to take his wife to banks, insurance companies and other institutions to ensure that family can get end of life benefits to ensure family can survive his loss. Even then it didn't occur to me that I should prepare things so that if anything happens to me, my family is safe. I did not even do Provident Fund nomination. First thing I have done during COVID sickness is to prepare my family for any eventuality. Doctors told me that things might deteriorate after 5th day if its a severe infection. I realized how much I neglected my family in terms of building their life skills to flourish even in my absence. None apart from me knows car driving is a case in point. One of the important lessons I learnt is, it is vain to think that one would live forever and not planning for mortality is being irresponsible.
3. Help heal society: Indians are generally resilient but Delta wave pushed India to the brink. I never saw such despair and helplessness. My wife lost her uncle and aunt during Delta wave and she could not even pay her last respects. It was a pity that most could not even pay last respects for the fallen. Many doctors and paramedical staff lost lives and mortal fear was palpable in the air. On the first day of symptom I quarantined myself and started studying the disease. Videos recorded by Dr. K K Agarwal were very helpful in learning about the disease. Videos helped me to read the lab reports and brought awareness about the nature of the disease. In my first week of sickness, every day I heard about colleagues succumbing to disease. Colleagues who died were younger than me. Realization dawned on me that I was just lucky to get mild infection. Civil society did rise to the challenge and helped the needy in a big way. Shishu Mandir also did rise to the occasion and did following

• Shishu Mandir served 5 million meals by distributing 20250 food baskets.
• Shishu Mandir has setup 4 vaccination camps to help get 522 people vaccinated.
• Shishu Mandir bought six oxygen cylinders and concentrators to help 48 people.
• Shishu Mandir treated 1880 people and nursed them to health.
• Shishu Mandir organized 12 COVID test camps.
• Shishu Mandir distributed 307 mobile phones free for online classes.

Reason for India bouncing back from debilitating second wave is how people have come together to help each other. Shishu Mandir didn't have enough money at the outset to take up all the voluntary work but somehow funds poured in at the right time to help people through the COVID crisis. A state can mobilize resources but you require a strong civil society for providing the last mile support. Lesson I learnt is that India is a weak state, strong nation and much stronger civilization.

COVID nightmare is close to the end now. Have we really learnt the lesson so that future pandemics like COVID can be prevented? I don't think so since we as humanity haven't made any life style adjustments like moving away from animal based diet. Sadly we could not even get to the source of pandemic thanks to politics.