As a population of 1.3 billion people yelled “help” in unison thousands lost their voices forever. This article is not about bashing the government (I’ve observed there’s no use doing that), it’s about appreciating those who yelled at the top of their lungs but built their own rescue kits and rescued as many people as they could.
As an 18 year old who lived in a very sheltered home with everything and more an individual requires to sustain, I never checked my privilege until the day I was forced to. I could buy a ticket back home as soon as things got worse and hug my mom. When time came and I realized that the situation isn’t as easy as we thought it was a group of my classmates (a big hug to you if you’re reading this) decided to help and stop complaining. As soon as there was information about our little team, people desperate for help came forward.
Remember the time we used to talk about the future if we didn’t take care of the environment and everyone had a common answer? “We’d have to produce our own oxygen” guess where we are? If your answer is “in a state bad enough that we aren’t producing enough oxygen” you’ve got it right.
If you’re on Instagram, till last month we were looking at people enjoying with friends and life seemed to move towards the “post COVID” state but since April started my Instagram has divided into two parts 1. People who need help 2. People who are helping.
My own classmates have worked day and night for this, no one slept no one took breaks and most of all, no one complained. Everyone checked their privilege before stepping into the conversation and helped with everything they had. More than a 100 calls were made by certain members of the group.
Harassing, frustrating and infuriating calls later when one person replied with “yes remdesvir is available in our shop” the happiness is unparalleled. And honestly, I didn’t even know how to spell remdesvir until now.
Point being there is a lot of hopelessness around, this might or might not be the first or last time an occurrence like this took place but I hope that with the help of providers who are selflessly working every second of the day we see the dawn of a day where India stops yelling help and we focus on building a better system for our people instead of the next tallest statue of an old man (Yes this was a direct hit on the government).
