ABJECT HELPLESSNESS

DailyPost 1714
ABJECT HELPLESSNESS

Every individual has sometime or the other found himself not able to make much of the issue he has landed in and cannot think of a solution at least at that particular point of time. This is helplessness. You might be able to think of some solution, once the queer circumstances change. Generally, it’s not a matter of life and death. Most of the causal factors are known. Poverty and a couple of other issues have put large chunks of the population in this state for decades. They also know who can help and try it, out of utter need and some temporary solution is found out. The general subhuman existence continues. But rarely  you reach a state of abject helplessness, when it dawns on you, seeing the gloom all around.  The realisation is that you will not be able to do anything for yourself and nobody else will be able to anything for you to ward off the danger or the pitiable condition, if you land in that.

This is abject helplessness. Very rarely it happens. If it does, it might be for a few or a small region or related to some man-made or natural disaster. Once help comes it gets over or moderated. The route to resurrection is known. For sure, some people face the brunt and finally we call destiny and move ahead in life. The poor and rich and all sectors of society landing in the same predicament has been unheard and that too  throughout the country. In such calamities the caregivers are strong, they have the resources, can garner much more in a short period and life goes on. Either you think of partition or the recent natural calamities there was a perimeter to the persons impacted. It was not all. The denominator completely changed. Those who have lived through this scare will have a chilling down the spine feeling, for the rest of his life.

The caregivers getting shattered was happening for the first time in living memory. Having been battered for more than a year, the last thing they would have liked to encounter was the Second Surge of the ongoing pandemic, transforming it into a mass killer. These were our healthcare professionals and all others which support them, being integral part of the health ecosystem. They were seeing death day in and day out and were living themselves on the edge of life. Many lost their lives and many lost their loved ones, even in the hospitals they were on duty. Many cried out for oxygen for their patients and waited with bated breath for cryogenic containers and cylinders to arrive. The unlucky hospitals lost the patients for lack of oxygen supply.

For once every single individual’s confidence was shattered. This is abject helplessness. The stories of inspiration were sounding like stories of devastation. The ones who left us in such pathetic circumstances, have left us thinking for the rest of our lives; did they really deserve the end they were forced to. Hefty payments were demanded at every step, mostly illegal. Health black marketeered in the most apt description. The feudal paternalistic governments conveniently vanished into the blue. The fellows who were lucky to come back from the hospitals, remained wrecked and lots of them are subject to post Covid medical complications, sometimes more terrible than Covid itself. The home isolations have their own story, you were to play your own doctor. Nothing has changed and nothing will change is what India is all about. Just praying that  the third wave does not happen. Only politics has remained business as usual; really commendable resilience!

THE COUNTRY IS CRYING TO BE ALLEVIATED FROM THIS ABJECT HELPLESSNESS.

Sanjay Sahay

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