Several years ago, in the early nineties, my husband and I were posted at the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu. The Embassy was located in an old building set in a beautiful campus. Housing for a number of families was located inside the campus. The campus was fairly self-sufficient. It had a petrol pump, a small store for daily utilities, a Kendriya Vidyalaya (Central School) for the children, a basketball court and a football field for them to play in and a small temple, all inside the campus. The campus was surrounded on three sides by fairly thick pine forest. Looking at Kathmandu from a height, the campus looked like the green lungs of the city.
We lived in a lovely bungalow at one end of the football field. Our friends would joke that the house set the record for having the world’s largest parking. The house had gardens around it and the pine forest at the back. One Sunday afternoon, I woke up with a start, hearing the sound of jackals nearby. I ran out in a panic afraid that my baby son would go to the jackals with the same trust that he had for my parents’ German Shepherd dogs. Fortunately, I managed to stop him in time and to shoo away the creatures howling at my open gate.
The house also had a patch of bamboo. Bamboo leaves had fallen around this patch over a period of time, making a thick and spongy carpet. With two young boys at home, I set about cleaning this area after I heard that snakes found a convenient place to breed in the cavity inside bamboo plants. One afternoon, the gardener came into the house looking frantic as there were four snakes on the pathway next to the house. The snakes were probably young babies as they hadn’t escaped into the shrubbery. Ever ready to panic at the sound of the word ‘snakes’, I rushed to the garden. My parents, who were visiting at the time, came out behind me. Fearfully, I told the gardener to get a stick and call other gardener’s quickly and kill the snakes. My father defused my panic and told me in a calm voice that snakes were part of nature around us. “How many snakes will you kill?” “Just leave them in the forest and they will go into their natural habitat”, he said. As per his advice, the gardener got a stick and carried the snakes to the edge of the forest, where they vanished, never to be seen again.
I remembered this incident last night while going through the WhatsApp group of our small colony in Delhi. Panic seemed to have set in amongst the residents due to the dire news of escalating Covid-19 infections in Delhi over the last few days. I could sense the same panic rising inside me. India has witnessed to record increase in daily cases. Over 270,000 fresh infections were reported across the country on 19 April, taking the nationwide tally to over 15 million. With over 1600 people succumbing to the virus in the last 24 hours to the viral disease, the death toll shot to 178,769. India reported more than 100,000 Covid-19 cases a day for the first time on April 5. Since then, barring April 6, the infection numbers have risen by over 100,000 cases every day, going over the 200,000 mark for the first time on April 15. Daily fatalities have been reported to be more than 1,000 since April 14. To bring the situation under control, the Delhi government announced a curfew over the weekend. The curfew has been extended for a week starting the 19th of April. Given the sudden spike in cases, Delhi encountered an "acute shortage" of oxygen and beds for Covid-19 patients.
News of the suddenly deteriorating situation has heightened the anxiety of citizens. Not unlike the empty grocery stores at the beginning of the pandemic last year in many parts of the world, there’s a strong urge to store oxygen cylinders at this time of shortage. It was during one such discussion that I suddenly recalled my father’s question to me in Kathmandu so many years ago, “how many snakes will you kill?”
At a time of a health emergency, hoarding non-required medical equipment by citizens, ends up creating a shortage mentality that exacerbates the shortage. This creates a vicious cycle between shortage and panic. This ends up denying the lifesaving products to those genuinely in need. In an hour of crisis, the need is for people to try and remain calm and give a chance to the administration to manage the crisis.
My question to myself and my friends in the neighbourhood, thus, was, “how many oxygen cylinders will you store?”
Already, the administration has started action to handle the situation. PM Modi held back-to-back meetings with multiple stakeholders. Several actions have been announced vi’s-a-vis vaccines, medicines, incentives for businesses etc. Other stakeholders have started coming forward to lend a helping hand. For example, Indian Railways announced a special ‘Oxygen Express’ to transport liquid medical oxygen (LMO) after several states complained of a shortage. Many manufacturing units pledged to supplement oxygen supplies in the market. The pace of the vaccination drive will be accelerated. With a decisive push in so many directions, hope can perhaps slowly edge out anxiety! I hope India will show that it’s not only a large country with complex problems, but also a country with extensive and enormous strengths, well able to cope with the emergency it faces.
(Mrs. Ruchi Ghanashyam is the former High Commissioner of India to the UK. With a career in Indian Foreign Service for over 38 years, she has been posted in many countries including South Africa, Ghana, before arriving in the UK. She was only the second woman High Commissioner to the UK since India’s independence and during her tenure, she witnessed a number of significant developments in the UK-India relations).
