Covid , AC and CC

Covid AC and CC

‘Papa , do you know where the AC remote is ?’ Well , son , I don’t exactly remember where I saw it last but you know you should be grateful to uncle MK that you’re even able to think of switching the AC on . ‘ Uncle MK , why ? He didn’t get this AC for us , did he ? Have we ever met him? ‘ asked my 8 year old son .

MK , my school friend was always fascinated with ACs. While in primary school , he would always want to go to the only hair salon in town that was air-conditioned . In the late 80’s it was quite common for shops with air-coolers to highlight ‘A/C’ in bold letters , on the signboards outside though all that they had inside was an air cooler which constantly needed to be refilled with water , not a real Air conditioner . And many a times , with not enough pocket money to spare , we would just cycle past this , looking longingly at the board and go back to a regular non A/C salon , which charged less . As the years passed and as we went to high school , a new restaurant had sprung up in town which had the proper air-conditioners and needless to say , MK was fascinated by that . Eating out was still not very common , especially in a small town like ours . We managed to have a meal there on one or two occasions .

MK gave a lot of respect to Dad , and wanted to speak to him about something. The landline rang about an hour before MK came home and Dad had to go to the hospital , urgently . ‘You know what MK , I want to follow dad’s footsteps and become a doctor ‘ I told him as he came home ‘ But all these sudden calls and running off to hospital , I cant do this . And that means I’m gonna have to think of something else . ‘ I knew MK would agree , but he seemed to be rather annoyed . ‘Hey that’s no reason to say no to a job . You need to respond to your calling .’ I didn’t like the way he spoke . Dad was held up at the hospital and MK went back home , saying he would come back another day to speak to him . After the way he snapped back at me , I wasn’t too keen on asking him what it was that he so much wanted to talk to Dad about .

We met , a few days later . As he was getting off his cycle , Dad was sitting in the verandah reading some magazine .’ So beta MK , how is your AC hunt going on . Do you like the restaurant in town , the only one with a proper AC ?’ ‘ Uncle , its already shut down . Didn’t you know ?’ Eating out was seen as an expensive affair those days , and since home-cooked food was always considered the best , the restaurant had to shut down within a few months . ‘ Come , have a seat . So what was it that you wanted to talk about ?’ He looked at me , at Dad , then at me , and at Dad again . ‘Listen , if this is about some girl in our class and you don’t want me here , I’ll go inside ‘ ‘ Hey nothing like that ‘MK said , and turning to dad said ‘ Uncle I’ve decided to join the army ‘ That was like a bolt from the blue . Ok he was tall , he was fit , much more fitter than a pot-bellied me but why the army of all places ? ‘ You know MK , this beats me . How can you even think of doing this . I mean , Army ? Give me a break ‘ I somehow always had a negative vibe about joining the defence forces .

‘I’ve always wanted to be in the armed forces . I feel that way I can do something for the country .’ He had a maternal uncle who was in the army and I’m sure he was inspired by him .’ You’ve got it all wrong . You will be flung off to some far away places , looking after some international border and some random enemy will finish you off . I think its the most thankless job . You will even lose your life and all that you’ll get is a 21 gun salute and your family gets the coffin . I would never do that . I mean can’t you think of doing any other job with a much lesser degree of risk to like . I think all those who join the armed forces are mighty fools and .. ‘ Enough ‘ Dad thundered . There was absolute silence for the next couple of minutes . I dare not open my mouth again I thought to myself . ‘ You never talk ill of any profession that way . You may be the MD of a big company , or a peon in the smallest office in town . Every job needs to be respected .’ ‘ But Dad , I mean , Army of all things . Army ? But why ? ‘ I was too scared to say it out loud but dad read my mind . ‘Well , its coz you need to respond to your calling beta . You do something because you love doing it , not because of anything else . And whatever comes in the line of duty , you face it . Stand up to it . Fight it . Boldly . Bravely . Confidently . ‘

Dad continued . ‘ Remember the other day when I had to go off before MK got home . That patient was quite sick , requiring an emergency surgery for a hole in his intestine . And today he’s gone back home , healthy and sound . Nobody comes and gives me an award , but I continue doing it because there is joy and satisfaction when a sick patient recovers and goes home . That’s what keeps me pumped up and motivated . I feel this is my calling , and this is what I will continue doing for as long as I can . And MK, you should chase your passion . You should do what your heart says . I think you have figured out what your calling is – if it’s the army , so be it . Do not listen to anybody else . Tell yourself ‘this is my AC – my army calling ‘ I couldn’t believe that Dad was egging him on to play with his life , while for a tall talented young man like him there were so many other ‘safer’ options .

As months passed , we started going different ways . I joined a prestigious medical college in South India , while he after doing a bachelors , went to the defence academy . I used to write to him regularly , but he would reply very rarely . He would always say he’d rather prefer to speak to me over the phone , because writing letters was not his cup of tea . Getting through to someone on the hostel’s common landline phone when so many others were waiting for calls from their own homes was not very easy . Or I had to go to the nearby STD booth which was always crowded . And making calls after 11pm would burn a smaller hole in the pocket , but that would mean getting lesser hours of sleep before attending class the next day . The letters slowly stopped .

After I finished MBBS and went to work in a remote tribal village in Odisha ( then Orissa ) I was sent for from the hospital’s one room administrative office that there was someone on the phone asking for me . I knew it would be my parents . With no mobile phones or internet connectivity those days , they used to call me at the office landline atleast twice a week . To my surprise , it was MK . He had gone home to the town for a few days , on leave , met Dad and Mom , and got this number from them . Within a few minutes , a plan was made – that he would take a detour through Odisha before going back to Dehradun . The nearest train station was atleast 2 hours away , and I promised him I would be there to pick him up in the hospital jeep . A few hours before I was to leave to the station , a 1 year old child was brought . He was quite sick . I knew I couldn’t leave him and go . Being the interior tribal belt , there was no other hospital for a 40-odd kilometre radius , and I was the only resident doctor . I quickly went through my photo album to see if I had any picture of MK , and found one . It must have been clicked atleast 8 or 9 years ago . I gave it to SM , the jeep driver and warned him ‘ He may look much more different now . Please be patient in searching for him ‘ SM spoke Odiya and a bit of Hindi , so i gave a small hand-written note in a sealed envelope to let MK know that he could trust the person who’s come to pick him up . There was nothing else I could do . And thankfully MK got to the hospital to my accommodation without any hassles . I apologised profusely that I couldn’t be there at the station . ‘ Hey come on , you dont need to feel sorry . SM told me why you couldn’t come along . Its absolutely fine . This is your calling , and you’ve responded . ‘ The child who was brought in with severe dehydration secondary to diarrhoea was recovering well . I had a smile on my face as I gave this news to MK before he left .

Years passed . I learnt from his parents that MK did well in his graduation and then joined the National Defence Academy where he did well too . We managed to catch up briefly in Chennai over a meal . This time we both had a Nokia ‘ button ‘ phone so we wouldn’t have to go to an STD booth which had already died a slow death by now . And we were sitting in an upscale fully air-conditioned restaurant . Our families had now moved over to Hyderabad , and there was nobody left in the small little town that we grew up in . But , MK said , eating out had become much more common , there were a whole bunch of restaurants that had come up in town , all with proper A/Cs ,and all doing well . A trip to the town and a meal in one of the restaurants was on our bucket list . We slowly started settling down into our lives , had our own small families and over the next few years smart phones had taken over the market . Staying in touch was much easier . We would constantly share pics of the kids . He would be very disturbed whenever there was a news of any officer having been hurt or unfortunately martyred in the line of duty . But many times he also mentioned that what hurt him and his colleagues the most was the hostility and insensitivity shown by our own fellow countrymen , while fighting in the valley . He would say ‘ I feel like giving it all up and going back to our good old town , but then you know I chose this . I can’t let my country down just coz of some fellows behaving badly . Like your dad said , I will fight . ‘

I reminded myself of what Dad said to MK that day , almost 2 decades ago . ‘ Well , its coz you need to respond to your calling beta . You do something because you love doing it , not because of anything else . And whatever comes in the line of duty , you face it . Stand up to it . Fight it . Boldly . Bravely . Confidently . Tell yourself this is my AC , my Army Calling .’ Those words still ring in my ears .

We were supposed to catch up again sometime in 2015 , with the families , but the plans didn’t materialise . Even after that I tried but could never meet him . And then the pandemic struck . The entire nation went into a sudden lockdown . Suddenly , I had to respond to the need of the hour – Covid . Having trained as a surgeon , I wasn’t the best qualified to look after those infected with the deadly Corona virus but I had to chip in , like all my colleagues , in the best possible way I could . It was after one of those post-covid duty shifts that I longed to speak to MK . I was hoping I could make a whatsapp video call or organise a zoom call with some more of our friends . As I got back home , very carefully disposing off my mask , my hospital scrubs without coming in contact with either the kids or the wife and heading straight to the bathroom for a shower , I checked my phone to see if MK had texted or called . Nothing . No new notifications . As I went to bed , I suddenly thought I saw a message that said ‘ Hey man , who’s the bigger fool today ? ‘ I couldn’t really understand what MK was trying to say . What did he mean by this ? ‘ You know , years ago , you called me a fool when I said I wanted to join the armed forces . But God forbid , if something were to happen to me in the line of duty , it would be only me . But you , now that you take care of Covid patients , are not risking just yourself but your entire family too . Would you agree with me on this ? So tell me , who’s the bigger fool ‘ I was stunned . Had never thought about it this way . I was too numb to answer . Yes , Iam putting myself AND the family at risk . Just as I was scrambling for an answer , I felt him say ‘ Don’t be worried mate . You have responded to your calling . Uncle did the emergency surgery , and you resuscitated a dehydrated child . And there will be millions of such instances where timely intervention has helped save many lives . You are doing what you should be doing in the current crisis , to the best of your ability . And like uncle said many years ago , if I responded to my ‘AC’ then , now consider this your response to your CC . Not just you the doctors , but the nurses , the lab personnel , the ward boys and the sweepers and the entire medical fraternity all over India and the world who have all unflinchingly , valiantly responded to their CC – ‘Covid’ calling . You can never be called fools . Each and every healthcare worker is not a hero , but a superhero .’

Whenever I see a video or read a news report in which medical workers , doctors , nurses are assaulted , it breaks my heart . And I’m sure it would no doubt cause immense agony to MK too . Everytime I switch the AC on , be it at home , in the car or in the office , I remind myself that I can sit,relax and sleep in peace because there’s thousands of MK’s guarding our borders to the best of their ability , because they have responded to their AC ‘ Army Calling ‘ .With the second wave of Covid currently wreaking havoc in India , and as WFH comes back into force big time , with every e-mail that is sent with a CC , can we please take a moment to salute the tirelessly working medical fraternity , who have responed to their ‘CC’ , their Covid calling . And I now understand why MK always said what hurt more was not the fighting with the enemy , but the hostility shown by our fellow countrymen . We in India are currently fighting a common enemy , the dreaded Covid . To quote Dad , who I unfortunately lost about four years ago to a heart attack , ‘ whatever comes in the line of duty , you face it . Stand up to it . Fight it . Boldly . Bravely . Confidently’ . We will fight . But it’s a sad fact that many patient’s relatives are busy assaulting the medical workers . Doctors are also humans , there is only so much one can do . Our health infrastructure is abysmally poor , we don’t have enough resources be it beds or Oxygen or ventilators for the kind of population and numbers that we have . What’s at stake is not only our health , but also that of our families but we will not give up . We will keep fighting till we defeat it . We dont want a thank you , we don’t want all the thaali banging and all , but in these tough times , can we also say that we dont want to be assaulted . Or the shouting . Or the humiliation . Or the beating . Can we all, as a nation that is fighting a deadly pandemic that is ravaging the country , take a moment to pause and say ‘ Ok let’s not hurt the already overworked and crumbling healthcare workers . ‘ Please , atleast that much I’m sure is not too much to ask for . And I’m not even bringing up the mental and the emotional toll that it takes on us and our families .

‘ Papa , did we meet uncle MK ? .’ ‘Yes , we did , you were just about a year old so you wont remember .’ ‘ Ok , can we meet him now . Maybe not right now , but after Corona virus goes away ‘ I wish I could say Yes . But even the plans to go back for a meal in one of the A/C restaurants in town also hasn’t worked out yet . Actually it will never work out . It can’t happen , however long I wait or how much ever I try . Because MK is survived by his wife and a daughter , who is as old as my son . He was in his early 30’s when he died valiantly fighting intruders in the valley , a few years ago .

We need to salute every MK , every person who is working for the safety of the country , be it the army the navy or the airforce . So that you and I can sleep in peace , switching our AC’s on . They are not fools , they are our heroes . And so are the medical fraternity who have responded as best as possible to this deadly pandemic , much beyond their capacity , putting their health and the health of their families at risk . Beds are not available, ICUs are fully occupied with a huge waiting list, Oxygen supplies are grossly inadequate , many patients’ lungs affected by Covid are unable to support them enough to keep them alive whilst there are not enough ICUs and NIVs and Ventilators for the whole population, and there’s a waiting list for a slot in crematoriums too . The scene is quite horrible , to put it bluntly . And to expect doctors and healthcare workers to make each and everyone come out of ICU is very unrealistic , just as it is to blame them squarely and attack them when a patient does not make it inspite of all the best efforts .

I’m a surgeon, and I don’t directly look after sick Covid patients in ICUs , just helping out in the periphery in the level 1 wards where there are predominantly stable patients . But many of my friends and colleagues , both seniors and especially juniors some of whom have started their first ever day of post mbbs internship in the covid wards , they are all deep in the war zone , religiously doing their Covid duties day and night without complaining , getting drenched fully in sweat with the PPE that they wear 24×7 , and many don’t even go back home because they do not want to put their families at risk , because they have all responded in full sincerity to their CC , to their Covid calling . Many of us have turned positive last year , some of us this year as well and many have had to be isolated and quarantined along with their families . Many have lost their lives , and no one in the world , even the best experts in the medical community can say with authority or give the assurance that no more medical workers will succumb to the disease . The fight is still on , for how long is anybody’s guess . Coz now if it’s corona, a decade or two later it could be something else . Even as I write this , scores of medical personnel’s nasal swab results come back positive for Covid , every single day . But if I were to summarise the situation the way MK used to – the blows from this deadly virus, and from this enemy do not hurt as much as the hostility , insensitivity and indifference from our own people . There is not enough protection from the law for medical personnel who are subjected to abuse in India . Our law enforcement agencies also struggle with this big time and are not able to prevent or take any definitive action against the perpetrators of crime , not just now but for the past many years . In such a scenario , we do not want any salute or a thank you or thaali clanging or claps from our fellow countrymen , but at the same time , is it too much to ask that we the medical community atleast be spared the slaps ?