What COVID-19 Taught

Whenever Sudhir fretted over the hot Summer days, his father Rama Rao would counter him saying Summer was the best season. The retired electrical engineer that he was, Rama Rao said as his body basked in the Sun, it got solar-powered and his stride added a sprint to his gait. In Summers Rama Rao's walks indeed became longer as he explored different routes smelling the jasmine in the air.

Rama Rao was asthmatic and it was during the Summer season his lungs breathed easier. So he pooh-poohed all the talk around the heat and sweat. This was the topic of a light altercation between the father and son with Rama Rao's wife Sunanda taking her son Sudhir's side as she too couldn't stand the heat. 

The entire family loved mangoes and that was another topic that went around their house during Summer as they tasted the delectable variety of mangoes viz., the banaganapalli, kesari, Alphonso, rasaalu etc.

But that summer of 2021, there was hardly any talk about either the summer heat or the mangoes in Rama Rao's household. In fact, there was hardly any talk about anything except Coronavirus and the statistics related to the pandemic. 

With no outings even for a walk, the family had been confined to the four walls of the house for more than a year now. All this social ostracisation had started playing havoc on their minds, which were more often than not anxious and scared, especially for Rama Rao, Sunanda and Sai Ramya, the 13-year-old daughter of Sudhir and Rama.

Sudhir had to go out of the house for his work as he worked as the Deputy Branch Manager of a reputed Private Sector Bank. Since he was the joint custodian of the vault key in the branch, he was the first one to reach the branch and almost the last one to leave it. As a person who not only stepped out of the house but also met a whole lot of customers every day from all walks of life, Sudhir was always anxious about his contracting the virus. More than for his own safety, he was worried about the safety of his aged parents.

He heaved a sigh of relief for having escaped safely the onslaught of the first wave of the virus. But like everyone else, he was caught off guard during its second wave. It was his cough and sore throat that alerted him about the infection. Though he took care to isolate himself from the other family members, it proved to be too late.

Soon every member of the household showed the symptoms. When Rama Rao's saturation levels started dropping, Sudhir became extremely distraught. He cursed himself for not taking his parents for the vaccination sooner because of his work which always kept him on his toes. By the time, he had registered them for one, the vaccine shortage had hit the State hard.

Sudhir started running helter-skelter for the Oxygen cylinders for his father. Fortunately, one of his customers could arrange for it. Without wasting any time, Sudhir reached out to another customer of his branch who ran a hospital in the city for a bed for his father.

Having accomplished the toughest task of getting his father proper medical treatment, Sudhir started praying for his well-being. That was the time when guilt hit him hard. He kept regretting not getting his parents vaccinated. He wondered whether the one time he stepped into the lift without a mask cost him so heavily. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't let go of his guilt about the past and his worry about the future.

Weighed down by the trauma he was going through, as he broke down one day, Rama sat him down and said "It is not your fault. You couldn't have helped stepping out of the house as the breadwinner. And you are doing everything you can. Remember, thanks to your contacts, you were able to arrange good medical treatment for your father. Have hope. Your father is a fighter. He would come home and recover."

Rama's words helped lift Sudhir's spirits a bit. Over the next few days, his father's condition improved and he came home after a week. By then the other members of the family too had recovered fully. 

More than anyone else, it was the Khan family living next door that came to Sudhir's family's rescue by fetching medicines and essentials for the family. Even Sunanda, who was very sceptical about them earlier, was touched by their generosity. For the very first time, she tasted and relished the Kheer left by them at their door on the occasion of Eid and understood why everyone raved so much about it.

This brush with COVID-19 worked as a wake-up call for the entire family. Rama Rao was very happy to note that where he couldn't succeed over the years, COVID-19 did in a matter of a few days. All the family members joined him in the morning Yoga sessions. Sai Ramya, Rama and Sudhir vowed to give up eating junk food and took on the target of losing weight. 

In a way, this gentle brush with death taught them something about life and the value of family more than anything else in their collective lives of decades ever did.

(The story is loosely based on certain true incidents.)