Corona Daily 486: Wrong Time

We have known M’s family for a long time. She lives in Mumbai with her daughter, and her husband works out of Delhi. He visits Mumbai every weekend.

Now with the lockdown, he has been stuck in Delhi for three weeks.

The Indian lockdown has completely paralyzed public transport. No flights, no railways. Only trucks carrying vegetables and other foodstuff can move on the highways. Even in Mumbai, you can’t move from the South to the North.

‘I will take the first flight once the flights begin.’ M’s husband assured M every time they spoke over the phone. He continued working online in his rented Delhi flat.

Last Sunday, M called him. The phone didn’t answer. Must be resting on Sunday, she thought. Although what is the difference now between Sunday and other days? She left a WhatsApp message asking him to call back. When he hadn’t called by evening, she called his friends. They knew as much as she knew, and they were in Bombay.

The family realized they had his phone and Delhi address, nothing else. They knew nobody in Delhi, not even his landlord. Calling the police can be frustrating, and they didn’t know which police to call and what the complaint should be. An MP (Member of Parliament) was a friend of M’s brother. The MP moved wheels, literally. He made the Delhi police go to the address and break open the flat.

M’s husband was found dead. The presumed cause was cardiac arrest. In current times, nobody thinks of an autopsy. The MP then booked an ambulance and made it carry the dead man to Bombay. M’s family went to the crematorium, where they had to hurriedly cremate the man soon after the ambulance arrived.

I didn’t ask about the suitability of an ambulance to carry a body for 1000 miles in this April heat. I didn’t want to know the answer.

What would have happened if the family didn’t know an MP? What if the medical staff had suspected this man was a Covid-19 victim? Would the ambulance then carry him?

*****

The lesson is for those who live alone or are trapped somewhere alone. Give your families or friends the phone numbers of your neighbors, colleagues, and landlords.

If any of your family or friends is trapped somewhere alone, make sure you have ways to contact their neighbors.

In current times, living alone is bad enough. Dying alone is a catastrophe.

Ravi