“Do not be distressed, do not despond or give up in despair, if now and again practice falls short of precepts”.

The Covid 19 pandemic, looking back as numbers of affected and dying have decreased, can be called more of a pandemic as all of the state’s and central governments made a mess of the whole accord, disgraceful to say the least, (that’s my view and assessment of the handling of human dignity which I will share)

Definitely the poor, marginalized, sick & dying, Covid-19 doesn’t really scare them as much as hunger and starvation do.

Covid-19 created the global pandemic, and it has very unpredictable impacts on all sectors, economic and livelihood of the poor and marginalized of Pondicherry.

Though the lockdown may help in the spread of the virus, it still has a chronic impact on vulnerable populations. Thousands of poor lost their employment and suffer inequality and poverty. Especially the people who wait for tourists to buy handmade products, balloons, fruits, snacks, bags, cloths, a rickshaw puller, auto drivers, and beggars.

Particularly hit hard are the most important food systems (beggars, street poor, marginalized, handicapped, disabled dying…) Storage, market chains locally and marginally. Besides these, the public outcries are the images, news info. Of corpses drifting down the Ganges River, which Hindus consider holy! Have shocked us and the nation, reeling under the worst surge, since April, May 2021.

There was a video on news channels that was shot by someone driving on the bridge from where a dead body was dumped seemed startling. Why dead bodies were floated on the river is still being investigated.

Besides, there were the bodies buried, usually overnight, along the river beds. This is just some of the disaster I’ve been able to see I’m confident there are more.

Sadly enough there are some of the most painful instances that came to me. Covid-19 relatives, refusing acceptance of their own dead family members from hospitals. Bodies piled up in crematoriums, many deaths not officially recorded. The shortage/ short supply of gas and firewood, our age-old customs being pushed aside as crematoriums workers/employees most operating without a break, watch some of the frames of the crematoriums melt due to the rush, dumping of the dead.

Long and shot the people whom I have seen yesterday, they are no more today. This is life and it has no guarantee. How I wish, we humans share each other, care for each other for we brought nothing to this world and we will take nothing from this world. Come let’s reunite once again to rebuild our nation, state, community, and family.