Coronavirus pandemic continues to make a devastating effect on the lives of all sorts of people in the society here and elsewhere across the globe. Although the alarming situation is coming close to normal in a handful of countries, back home the conditions appear scary from bad to worst.
After successful implementation of 1:0 and 2:0 lockdown periods throughout the country, the countrymen sighed a heave of relief that the numbers of infections and casualties were far behind such figures in the United States, Italy and many other Western countries.But such a feeling appeared to be an initial mirage while the real big danger was closely, wickedly watching from behind. And the fellow countrymen did little to disprove the deadly killer virus wrong. Once the lockdown measures began to be withdrawn slowly, migrant labourers, students, tourists and others stranded across the country started to make a beeline toward their native places.
Perhaps this was the initial phase for the Coronavirus to spread like wildfire after the fiasco following the return of Indian origin people residing in other countries and Tablighi pilgrims returning to their native places.
Then on the daily tally of people testing positive, succumbing to the infection and those recovering and getting discharged from the hospitals and all those under home and institutional quarantine has become a hot topic for people and all those in the corridors of power to ponder over.
Meanwhile, the livelihood of ordinary citizens' compelled to sweat on a daily basis to earn the day's bread suddenly became miserable. As a result, their lives became vulnerable like never before as the hopes of retaining and getting new jobs began to crumble and diminish altogether slowly and gradually.
A majority of them vacated their rented houses and packed off to the native places to survive the onslaught of the century's pandemic and start afresh till the bad time got over once for all. In fact, all those thinking on similar lines managed to escape the fury of Corona for the time being.But it was not the same case to those who had left their native places once for all to the towns and cities with the fond hope of seeking green pastures for the remaining part of their lives. Those still retaining houses and fields had an alternative but not others who had disposed of them or didn't possess them either.
After having lost the jobs once held until yesterday and with all futile attempts to find others, it was a perplexing moment in life being experienced for the first time to millions of people across the nation. The so-called employees suddenly became unemployed with no known sources of income to pull on.
The jobs were gone but the expenditure continued to persist. EMIs' to several types of loans availed, monthly rent, expenditure on grocery items, fees of children despite schools functioning online, school van charges whether the children used the facility or not became a nightmare to many of them.
To take Pune as a case study in trying to understand the catastrophic effect the pandemic has caused, Sixty-eight suicides have taken place within a short span of just 34 days!
Krishna V.Itnal, a septuagenarian Gandhian, former LIC officer hurt by the ongoings in the neighbourhood struggles to find words to describe the man-made holocaust: The joblessness, depression and frustration as a fallout due to the Corona havoc has led to such a horrible development...
...Atul Shinde, aged 33, his wife Jaya 30, son Rigveda,6 and daughter Angara aged 3, were seen hanging to death, with a request to police not to trouble others for they killed themselves because of present circumstances. Atul and his wife were postgraduates. Atul was self-employed...
...In another incident, Surajsingh a watchman with his Nepali wife Aruna were staying in a housing society. Some days back, Aruna's brother came to stay which led to a dispute among them. Her brother noticing that Suraj hanged himself to death rushed out to call the brother of Suraj and by the time they returned to society, Aruna had followed the way of her husband. They had entered into wedlock after loving one another...recalls Krishna V. Itnal in a mellowing tone.
The hopeless thing is that these incidents are taking place like soap opera serials' on TV. To add to such woes media reports proclaim that nearly 25,000 lady beauticians,50,000 barbers in Pune are jobless. The number of 4 lakh housemaids in Maharashtra has become a matter of discussion, he points out.
To sum up, he has another point to make: The Union Finance Minister still hopes to bring back our economy on Macro size. When such economic disaster's, are leading to serial suicides, among the grass root level workers, my only appeal to the FM is to please do think of Microeconomics for us. Or else we all, we can rightly imagine of deaths due to hunger.To corroborate my point, I quote Govind Raghuraman who says even a street lady vegetable vendor leads, a decent family life. So, honourable FM Pl take our view into consideration so that we can rebuild our India brick by brick. This is an appeal to avoid further suicides, he signs off.
After successful implementation of 1:0 and 2:0 lockdown periods throughout the country, the countrymen sighed a heave of relief that the numbers of infections and casualties were far behind such figures in the United States, Italy and many other Western countries.But such a feeling appeared to be an initial mirage while the real big danger was closely, wickedly watching from behind. And the fellow countrymen did little to disprove the deadly killer virus wrong. Once the lockdown measures began to be withdrawn slowly, migrant labourers, students, tourists and others stranded across the country started to make a beeline toward their native places.
Perhaps this was the initial phase for the Coronavirus to spread like wildfire after the fiasco following the return of Indian origin people residing in other countries and Tablighi pilgrims returning to their native places.
Then on the daily tally of people testing positive, succumbing to the infection and those recovering and getting discharged from the hospitals and all those under home and institutional quarantine has become a hot topic for people and all those in the corridors of power to ponder over.
Meanwhile, the livelihood of ordinary citizens' compelled to sweat on a daily basis to earn the day's bread suddenly became miserable. As a result, their lives became vulnerable like never before as the hopes of retaining and getting new jobs began to crumble and diminish altogether slowly and gradually.
A majority of them vacated their rented houses and packed off to the native places to survive the onslaught of the century's pandemic and start afresh till the bad time got over once for all. In fact, all those thinking on similar lines managed to escape the fury of Corona for the time being.But it was not the same case to those who had left their native places once for all to the towns and cities with the fond hope of seeking green pastures for the remaining part of their lives. Those still retaining houses and fields had an alternative but not others who had disposed of them or didn't possess them either.
After having lost the jobs once held until yesterday and with all futile attempts to find others, it was a perplexing moment in life being experienced for the first time to millions of people across the nation. The so-called employees suddenly became unemployed with no known sources of income to pull on.
The jobs were gone but the expenditure continued to persist. EMIs' to several types of loans availed, monthly rent, expenditure on grocery items, fees of children despite schools functioning online, school van charges whether the children used the facility or not became a nightmare to many of them.
To take Pune as a case study in trying to understand the catastrophic effect the pandemic has caused, Sixty-eight suicides have taken place within a short span of just 34 days!
Krishna V.Itnal, a septuagenarian Gandhian, former LIC officer hurt by the ongoings in the neighbourhood struggles to find words to describe the man-made holocaust: The joblessness, depression and frustration as a fallout due to the Corona havoc has led to such a horrible development...
...Atul Shinde, aged 33, his wife Jaya 30, son Rigveda,6 and daughter Angara aged 3, were seen hanging to death, with a request to police not to trouble others for they killed themselves because of present circumstances. Atul and his wife were postgraduates. Atul was self-employed...
...In another incident, Surajsingh a watchman with his Nepali wife Aruna were staying in a housing society. Some days back, Aruna's brother came to stay which led to a dispute among them. Her brother noticing that Suraj hanged himself to death rushed out to call the brother of Suraj and by the time they returned to society, Aruna had followed the way of her husband. They had entered into wedlock after loving one another...recalls Krishna V. Itnal in a mellowing tone.
The hopeless thing is that these incidents are taking place like soap opera serials' on TV. To add to such woes media reports proclaim that nearly 25,000 lady beauticians,50,000 barbers in Pune are jobless. The number of 4 lakh housemaids in Maharashtra has become a matter of discussion, he points out.
To sum up, he has another point to make: The Union Finance Minister still hopes to bring back our economy on Macro size. When such economic disaster's, are leading to serial suicides, among the grass root level workers, my only appeal to the FM is to please do think of Microeconomics for us. Or else we all, we can rightly imagine of deaths due to hunger.To corroborate my point, I quote Govind Raghuraman who says even a street lady vegetable vendor leads, a decent family life. So, honourable FM Pl take our view into consideration so that we can rebuild our India brick by brick. This is an appeal to avoid further suicides, he signs off.
-Manohar Yadavatti
Comments
Post a Comment