For now, among the sick and dying, there is a vestige of democracy.
April 29, 2021 9:35 AM   Subscribe

Arundhati Roy reflects on India's COVID-19 catastrophe. About one year after her description of the pandemic as a portal. CW for suffering, death, disease. (SLGuardian) posted by doctornemo (13 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
Haunting article. Sadly necessary reading. It’s alarming to see the developments coming out of India. My friend shared his husband’s family in India have been half-vaccinated but some have caught covid in between. They’re hoping the half-vax will lessen symptoms.

I’ve really come to believe for every society we haven’t seen the true reckoning from covid. That doesn’t mean bad things necessarily, it’s just that this is such a monumental event of a very long duration and I don’t think we will know outcomes on societies and the world for a long, long time.
posted by glaucon at 10:57 AM on April 29, 2021 [13 favorites]


Heart breaking.

My family is in India; my mother contracted the disease last year, and luckily has recovered fully. Many others in my extended family have not been as lucky.

Modi is completely to blame. Here is a interview with an Indian historian, Ram Guha: Modi Leadership Style Main Reason for India's COVID Mishandling; He's a Megalomaniac.
posted by phliar at 11:13 AM on April 29, 2021 [13 favorites]


I'm the only US employee on my team at work. Everyone else is based in India, and it's been heart-breaking lately. One had his entire family come down with COVID at once. He's recovered, but his parents are still ill. Another just took the day off to help care for his in-laws.

I feel terrible that I'm sitting safely vaccinated here, while they are struggling.
posted by Eddie Mars at 11:22 AM on April 29, 2021 [14 favorites]


Modi and his bunch of religio-fascist-nationalist enablers should be in the Hague.
posted by lalochezia at 11:29 AM on April 29, 2021 [13 favorites]


He's a Megalomaniac.

Have you seen his yoga videos (not going to link to them)? He's utterly bonkers, and the less I say about psychopaths like Adityanath the better.
posted by aramaic at 11:31 AM on April 29, 2021 [3 favorites]


A friend told me yesterday that his doctor's office (in America) called to push out next week's appointment eight days, because the doctor has returned to his native India to help care for people (and returns the night before!).

I wish India the best; I have doubts that everything will be resolved in a week, and this appointment might get pushed out again.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:57 AM on April 29, 2021 [2 favorites]


I now work with a company that developed a kind of non-invasive ventilator, and we've just donated a shit-ton to hospitals in Mumbai and Delhi. Sent with all our best wishes.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:05 PM on April 29, 2021 [17 favorites]


This is brutal. I was going to post to askme to ask where the best place to donate is right now, but maybe this is the place to ask... sounds like it's not PMCare...
posted by piyushnz at 12:56 PM on April 29, 2021 [1 favorite]


Just today the U.S. sent a C-5 and a C-17 full of oxygen tanks, masks, test kits, and other stuff to India. Twitter link

Normally I would be agog over the size of that donation (those planes are comically huge), but then I think how it's just a drop in the bucket and I sag back.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:28 PM on April 29, 2021


California put together a shipment for India of hundreds of oxygen concentrators, tanks, and related equipment a few days ago as well.
posted by RichardP at 1:32 PM on April 29, 2021 [2 favorites]


On CBC News a couple of nights ago, there was an interview with a young woman and her young son as she described the hardship of separation (husband returned to care for Indian parents during COVID-19 crisis, and got stuck there). What struck me was the pragmatic tone: I can only imagine what it's like to go without your spouse, with uncertainty as to when you might seem them again, while raising a toddler. But she describes discussing things with the husband.. there's really not much to be done about it, and it's for the best at this time. Better to stay with the parents and help them, then risk a flight back prematurely. Sometimes the noise of the anti-mask, end the lockdown rallies is far louder than it needs to be. These quiet stories of people dealing with the situation the best they can, making no demands on others, and not complaining loudly about their "rights." What is happening in India is criminal, and we need to create a world where there are repercussions for elected representatives who betray the public trust in such an obscene fashion.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:23 PM on April 29, 2021 [4 favorites]


I hadn’t realized how dire things have gotten for the antifascist left in India. Modi might be the most dangerous person in the world.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:24 PM on April 29, 2021 [7 favorites]


As someone who usually cannot stand A. Roy's highbrow clickbait, I am grateful for the way this article has got up the nose of the government. Same for the NYT cover photo of funeral pyres burning in Delhi.

I am not sure about the rules of this site re: donations. But I can provide links over DM - all vetted by volunteers, which is the best you can get right now. My own priority is to give money to people who will make immediate use of it - rations, supplies for children etc. I am afraid anything longer term will be too late to help.
posted by tirutiru at 11:07 AM on May 2, 2021 [1 favorite]


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