Just over a year ago, the world witnessed a horrific murder by US Cop Derek Chauvin. He stepped on the neck of an African American George Floyd and killed him in cold blood – whilst he was pleading – I can’t breathe!
Today, the world is witnessing yet another tragically devastating calamity in India. Our medical fraternity is on the verge of collapse. Health professionals are under extreme stress. Every and each citizen is screaming, venting, crying out agonisingly – we can’t breathe!
At this point, I don’t know what is worse –not being able to get oxygen or lying on the ground for over 20 hours, waiting to be burnt as a corpse. Fighting for an ICU bed or bribing officials to stock medicine for your own selfish needs. Overcharging for a rt-pcr test or being unable to even get the ashes of your loved ones.
No one has a clue what this strain of virus is doing. Medicines aren’t working, plasma isn’t affecting, steroids are causing damage. People of all ages, are falling like a stack of dominoes. It almost feels surreal as we don’t even get to grieve what we lose. We are unable to keep count anymore for the numbers are in tens of thousands. If this isn’t awake up call, I really don’t know what is.
It is very easy to sit in the plush confines of your home and forward messages aiming to help, but the ground reality is far more serious and grimmer. Humanity needs each other and the world has its heart set on us, in India. Like the most recent ad campaign by Coca Cola – Optimism is more contagious than contagion, Just knowing that we are not alone is giving us the strength to look forward to a new dawn.
While it may appear that there is no ray of hope at the end of this darkness, the bare truth is that there are beams of colourful light just around the corner. We are fighting to exist and fight we will, for we would rather be exhausted than extinct!
