Covid in India: I am battling survivor’s guilt

Expats look on helplessly — from afar — as the onslaught of the pandemic ravages India and threatens to wreak havoc on families back home

I lost my mother to the pandemic. Whenever I say that, people are quick to offer, “May she rest in peace.” My mother is not dead — she is trapped in a limbo. An Alzheimer’s patient, being locked inside a home for months together last year sped up her cognitive decline much faster than even the doctors could have imagined. She began hallucinating, lost her sense of time, forgot how to receive calls and dial numbers, and became a fraction of the woman she once was. As a family, we had no choice but accept the hard truth, while ensuring we put in place a system that could help her, getting a caretaker for her.

However, if there was one thing that we collectively prayed for, it was the virus staying clear of her. Alzheimer’s and Covid-19 is a heady concoction. For someone who forgets where she is and who is not easily able to articulate her suffering, getting infected would be the ultimate nightmare.

Covid-19 entered our home a week ago, when my brother and mum tested positive. My father, who was showing every symptom, tested negative, but the docs weren’t convinced. They advised him to go for a test again. A day after, the nurse — who tested negative — left. My mother does not realise she is positive, and often dresses up immaculately to go for the walks in a garden she recently grew very fond of.

This is an alienating virus — it demands that people be left alone. This is the consolation I offer myself whenever I feel defeated at not being around to help my family in their hour of need. Social media and online medical shops and services have been helpful. You can ensure thermometers, steaming devices, oximeters and medicines and food reach home. But the mind plays its own games. Often, I wonder what if their condition worsens and hospitalisation becomes imperative. It’s not a far-fetched thought — many friends whose parents have been younger and fitter than mine are now struggling to get oxygenated beds in hospitals. Also, the virus does not play by a rulebook — it affects different people differently. As I see friends in Delhi calling for help for oxygen, as medical infrastructure is collapsing, as SOS pleas on social media for Remdesivir and plasma therapy become rampant, I wonder how long will it take before I find myself in those shoes.

Today, I am in the very spot my mother is in. Only my limbo has an additional baggage to it: survivor’s guilt. I suspect many of us who live here but have families back home in India are suffering from it. We escaped the sheer devastation that our families are dealing with. We escaped that anguish of not being able to see the world outside because a virus could be lurking anywhere. We escaped the indignity of haggling for the prices of oxygen concentrators that are now currently being sold at five times the market price because of the shortage. We survived, but we cannot yet be certain if our families will.

Away from the catastrophe that’s playing out in India currently, it is business as usual for us NRIs. The work cannot stop. And hence despite lugging the collective burden of grief, guilt and anxiety, we have to bury our heads into work, hoping it gives a purpose to our lives in this moment of crisis. It might be yet another escape for us, but I wonder if we will ever be able to heal the psychological injuries this period is inflicting on us.

I am often told by friends to get on with my life. And I wonder what could ‘normalcy’ mean for someone like me right now? I even tried to give myself a break and went to a mall recently to buy some essentials for the house. But as soon as I entered, I froze. My thoughts immediately went to my mother — if she had taken the medicine; my brother — if he was still battling fatigue; my father — if he had eaten well. Paralysed by this dizzying anxiety, I took a taxi back home. This is my ‘new normal’ — a place where despair and resilience fight it out to make sense of circumstances.

anamika@khaleejtimes.com