Pavani with her husband and mother-in-law in Bangalore. India has been hit by the second deadliest coronavirus outbreak in the world. According to official data, more than 21 million people in the country have been infected during the pandemic, with more than 230,000 deaths. Experts estimate that the official statistics may not reflect the true situation, and that the number of people infected and killed by the virus is many times higher.
Hospitals in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Ahmedabad are overcrowded, with severe shortages of oxygen and staff. Russians living in India told the BBC Russian Service about their perspective on what is happening in the country.
Pavani, a Russian originally from Moscow, has lived with her Indian husband for six years in Bangalore, the capital of the southern state of Karnataka. Their family lives in a safe neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. “Last week we went to the hospital for test results and I saw endless rows of ambulances,” Pavana told BBC. “There was nothing like this even last year when the pandemic was just starting.” “There were a lot of people in that department, and they were in a deplorable condition,” Pavani says. “It was clear that the situation was critical.” Pavani has her own pharmaceutical business in Bangalore, while her husband has a steady job. The city is home to more than 10 million people and is a major technology hub, similar to Silicon Valley in the United States. As of Monday, there are nearly 600,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the state of Karnataka – 15,000 more than the day before. In the past 24 hours, 490 people have died from Covid-19 here.
All malls in Bangalore are closed. “We are not as bad as Delhi, the hospitals here are coping for now and there is not such a shortage of oxygen and beds, but people are still afraid,” Pavani shared her observations. A close friend and classmate of her husband’s, as well as several other acquaintances, recently died of coronavirus. “One young man was 35 years old, he had no chronic diseases,” Pavani said. “Several other people died.” She tries not to go out, her husband goes to the store for groceries.
Pavani and her husband in happier times. “Take any Indian and they will tell you that someone they know, a relative or someone else, has died of coronavirus,” says Pavani. “A lot of my husband’s relatives live in Delhi, and we are very worried about them.”
Coronavirus patients in Bangalore hospitals Since last Tuesday, a new lockdown has been announced for the city for a period of 14 days: only grocery stores are open from 6 to 10 a.m., pharmacies and hospitals are open all day. Police officers stop cars on the street, and drivers and passengers are fined if they don’t have a valid reason for leaving their homes. “There was nothing like this last year.” Pavani can gauge the scale of the crisis by the number of patients in her area. Residents of the gated community where she lives communicate through a WhatsApp group. Every day, they receive information about which apartments are in self-isolation or have been hospitalized.
Pavani lives in this gated community in Bangalore. “We have seven buildings, each with 20 floors, and already 17 apartments have been quarantined, and that’s a lot,” she says. “Our neighbors in similar closed neighborhoods are also having 20, 25, 30 apartments out of five hundred go into quarantine. This didn’t even happen last year. If a home is in quarantine, it means that at least one member of the family has tested positive for coronavirus. The number of homes is not decreasing day by day: some end self-isolation, others begin it.
Each day, the residents of the neighborhood receive a list of apartments that are under quarantine. “It feels like the situation is out of control and it’s unclear what’s happening,” Pavani worries. “That certainly creates fear.” “People have nowhere to go.” According to her, many Indians do not trust government hospitals, so they take their loved ones to private clinics in crisis situations. There are no price lists, and after treatment many people receive bills that are huge by local standards. “A woman in our neighborhood works as a security guard. Recently, her husband died in a private hospital,” says Pavani. “She couldn’t get his body out of that hospital because they wanted almost four thousand dollars for the treatment. Where does she get that kind of money?”
Pavani’s friend was denied the release of her husband’s body unless she paid for his treatment. A woman’s salary is $300 a month, with which she supports two children. The people in the neighborhood had to collect money in the same messenger group so she could bury her husband. “People have no place to go,” says Pavani. “They will take their loved ones anywhere just to save a loved one.”
Yoga teacher Veronica from St. Petersburg has been living in Delhi for almost a year and a half. She came to India for two months in early 2020 to travel around the country.
Veronica was stranded in Delhi by the first wave of the coronavirus. “After staying in India for two months, suddenly there was a lockdown and I had to stay because air travel was closed,” Veronica explains. “There was no way to get back home.” Because she did not have a return ticket, she was not entitled to the daily payments (about 2,500 rubles) from the Russian government that other Russian citizens in the same situation received. “Of course I was very scared, there were panic attacks, because I had no job here, nothing – she recalls. – But then there was an acceptance of what was happening, the storm of the mind gradually subsided.
Veronica says India has taught her a lot and she doesn’t want to leave yet. At first, Veronica was helped by charitable foundations. Then, when the strict quarantine ended, she started teaching yoga, made friends, and decided to stay in Delhi for a while. According to the Indian Ministry of Health, there are currently nearly 90,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Delhi. In the last 24 hours, 273 people have died of the infection. Due to the deteriorating epidemiological situation, a quarantine was imposed in Delhi two weeks ago. “We mostly stay at home now and only go to the market because only grocery stores are open,” said Veronica, BBC. “In this situation, of course, we don’t want to take unnecessary risks and go anywhere.”
In Delhi, almost everything is closed for quarantine right now. From 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. there is a curfew in the city, during which it is forbidden to go out on the streets. In Delhi, large fines (two thousand rupees, which is about two thousand rubles) are imposed for non-compliance with the rules and mask regime.
Funeral pyres Since Veronica rarely goes out, she finds out what is happening through local news and through videos, photos, and messages that friends and acquaintances send her. “My friend, who is a doctor, says that there is indeed a shortage of oxygen in the hospitals and that many people are now dying,” says Veronica. “He basically confirms what is being reported on television. Veronica’s friends recently lost loved ones to the coronavirus. Another friend sent her photos of the crematorium where he said the bodies of Covid-19 victims were burned.
Veronica’s friend sent her photos of the crematorium in Delhi. We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what’s next. эпизоды – Episodes The end of the story: Advertising Podcasts According to Veronika, cremation in India is a traditional way of saying goodbye to deceased relatives and a religious rite in Hinduism. “There are electric crematoriums where people can be cremated, which is a very cheap procedure,” she explains. “And the expensive procedure is when they make a special wooden bed for the deceased, burn them, and then scatter the ashes over the Ganges River.” As Veronika says, followers of Hinduism believe that if such a funeral rite is performed over the body, the soul of that person awaits a happy life after reincarnation. “I don’t see people running around in a panic, but of course people are afraid of what’s happening,” she shares her observations. “But here in India, people have a different attitude towards death, for them it’s reincarnation, it’s a new life.” Another friend of Veronika’s lost her uncle to coronavirus last week. The nephew recorded a video of what happened after his death and showed it to the girl. “The body is wrapped in a bag. All the doctors and workers who do the burning wear protective suits, masks and face shields – she describes the scenes she has seen. – The relatives are not even allowed to say goodbye to the deceased – the body is just put in a bag and burned”. Due to the risk of viral infection, many families of those who have died from Covid-19 are not allowed to hold traditional funeral rites.
The bodies of patients who have died from coronavirus are wrapped in bags before being cremated. “It’s certainly scary and horrible that you can’t even say goodbye to a person,” Veronica shares her emotions. “When a person dies from the coronavirus, their relatives are not even allowed near the body.”
Marina has been living in India for a year and a half with her Indian husband, and they have a three-year-old daughter. Her husband runs a professional sports consulting business here. They originally came to India for six months, but got stuck in Bangalore for a year and a half because of the virus. They lived in the center of the city, and unlike the peaceful suburb where Pavani lives, it was a densely green and noisy neighborhood. To avoid the crowds and closures of Bangalore, Marina and her family moved to the village of Varka in South Goa last week.
Until the strict quarantine began, Marina enjoyed her vacation in the village of Varka in Goa. “In Bangalore, the air pollution is usually quite bad, and here we read stories in the press about overcrowded crematoria,” Marina told the BBC. “We looked at these photos, felt uncomfortable and decided to leave.” The family could not escape the lockdown: since last Thursday, Goa has also been under quarantine. Initially, the measures were not as strict as in Bangalore or Delhi, but as of May 7, everything was closed here as well.
The beaches of Goa are empty. “In the morning, we went shopping as usual and found that all the stores were closed. We could only find half of the vegetables, but there was no fruit or fish,” Marina said. The family’s food supply will last about a week, and if the markets do not open, they will struggle. Neither Marina nor her daughter eats spicy food, so they cannot order meals from local restaurants. According to the Indian Ministry of Health, there are currently nearly 32,000 active cases of coronavirus in Goa. Over the past day, 67 people have died of Covid-19 in Goa. Due to the critical situation, all residents are asked to stay at home and only go out when necessary. “It feels like we haven’t committed any crimes, but we’re being punished,” Marina complains. Marina’s main concern is the mental health of her three-year-old daughter. She does not understand why the whole family is sitting at home again instead of going to the beach.
Last week in Goa, bars and restaurants were still open, but the number of seats was halved. “It’s us, the adults, who can deal with things, work remotely,” she muses. “But a child cannot do that, they have to go out and run, they have to be busy with something.” Some relatives of her wealthy friend in the state of Kerala have fallen ill, and he posts on social media that he is willing to buy oxygen tanks at any price. “There is nothing we can do, we will stay at home,” says Marina. “The most important thing is that everyone is healthy.”