That Helping Hand

                                                                     emilysquotes.com

“People appreciate and never forget that helping hand especially when times are tough.”                                                                           Catherine Pulsifer

People also never forget that unthinking hand that clenches and moves away in times of strife, that hand that thinks more of itself and refuses to see the larger picture. Covid-19 has taken over the world and understandably, the world is worried. One little but deadly organism has brought it to its knees.

Alarming reports have been coming up about a certain kind of ostracism that has raised its ugly head. Ostracism against the very people who are risking their own lives to help fight the dreaded virus, namely members of the medical profession and airline crew members.

What could be more unfair than this? Airline crews have been travelling across the world, airlifting passengers from COVID affected countries, and bringing them back to India, working long, strenuous hours, sometimes without a break.

                                                                   keepinspiring.me

Doctors, nurses and hospital staff have also been slogging it out, going without food or rest, trying to save lives. Their lives run like clockwork, as they bustle around from patient to patient, administering medicines and timely care.

On the 22^nd of March, 2020, the Prime Minister asked the entire country to observe a Janata curfew. His second request was that people should applaud the services of all the selfless crusaders fighting the virus. The whole country followed suit, a gesture that was much appreciated, only marred by groups of ‘covidiots’ who came out in hordes to clap and clank vessels.

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That one gesture should have united the country, shouldn’t it?

Unfortunately, not, or so it seems!

Airline crew members have complained of discrimination by vigilante members of their housing societies, who have either ostracised them completely or asked them to look for alternate living arrangements. Others have had the word QUARANTINE stuck outside their houses by irate neighbours. Sadder is the fact that even their children are being boycotted by the other children, all because they have parents working in the airlines. As one female crew member said poignantly, “We require your support. We are silent warriors. Help us.”

Doctors and health workers are also facing the same discrimination in their housing societies. After having slogged for long hours treating patients, they come back home to find themselves being ostracised for the exemplary work they have done. A newspaper report recently spoke of several doctors and medical students being evicted from their homes in Warangal, Telangana, and being rendered homeless by their landlords.

These are but two instances that have been publicised. How many more must be out there in the vast ocean of the population that makes up our country?

In the first place, why are these wonderful people risking their own lives to save others? Only because they have been taught by their professions to do so, and because they still believe in the ideals that make them what they are. We must remember that they are helping, nay, rescuing others who would otherwise die. They are containing a pandemic that would kill whole populations, left untended. They are angels of mercy, silent warriors.

So, isn’t it our responsibility to allow them to do their jobs without being stressed; don’t we have a duty to take care of their families who have been left to fend for themselves only because social responsibilities come before personal ones?

Unfortunately, they are being treated as outcastes, as carriers, as unclean, as untouchables by the same community that is being served by them. Where is the justification for this abhorrent behaviour? How can these close-minded people be so selfish and stony-hearted, when tomorrow, they might need the services of the very same people they are discriminating against?  After all, the death toll in the aftermath of Covid-19 is rising every single day.

The television channels and the whole of social media have been talking repeatedly about the precautions to be taken against the virus. What we need to remember as a society is that these precautions are to be taken against ‘covidiots’ who violate the law and put themselves and others in danger. These precautions are to strengthen the fight against the virus and make people aware of what they need to do to protect themselves and their families.

My fervent prayer to all citizens everywhere is this: please do not discriminate against the very people, the 'covid-warriors' who are helping us all in in the circuitous chain of containing Covid-19. If not for them, we would have no hope of survival. These wonderful workers are being highly unselfish and generous in giving of their time, their expertise and even their health. What keeps them going is their spirit and their undying faith in the goodness of humanity.

                                                                     memesbams

Please do not take away their spirit and undying faith. If they cease, so do we all!