Six decades ago, same palpable fear

Sooner than later, Covid-19 will be a thing of the past. The sad saga is bound to eclipse like smallpox, plague and diphtheria. It is a fact that the outbreak of the Spanish Flu of 1918 was responsible for the death of 17 million Indians. The present generation, too, will forget the traumatic phase of the century, with its many losses, lessons and memories.

A septuagenarian, I am witness to dreaded infectious diseases like smallpox and tuberculosis. My generation, during childhood, actually came across many individuals with facial smallpox scars, a highly transmittable disease that is almost history now. While in Chandigarh, in 1958, my cousin became a victim of an acute chest infection and was admitted to the General Hospital, Sector 16. One day, when the attendant visited the patient in the morning, there was a deafening silence in the ward. The sister-in-charge immediately rushed with a request ‘please, don’t go near the patient’s bed, it is very dangerous.’ ‘Oh! What is the problem?’ the attendant enquired. Prompt came the response, ‘The patient has been diagnosed with TB.’

Repeated requests to shift the patient to the isolation ward were totally negated. The sister-in-charge furiously ordered to immediately take the patient out of the hospital’s premises. Here was a dilemma of life, when the sister, and also the ward boy, plainly refused to even touch the wheelchair.

Totally helpless and frustrated, in a rickshaw the patient was ferried back home, on the Panjab University campus, where my uncle resided. The family could face and understand the helplessness and vehemence of the hospital staff, but here was an army of neighbours, aware of the might of contiguity of tuberculosis, up in arms to take away the patient immediately. The only alternative was the sanatorium at Kasauli. The option was next to impossible, keeping in view the family’s financial constraints.

At that time, the campus was in its infancy, with only barren land and few mango/jamun wild orchards. A disheartening, but quick decision was taken to shift him to the outskirts of the residential area. A 6’x8’ plot, amidst thick mango groves, was earmarked for a thatched hut. The place was where now Ankur School is situated. The services of a poor labourer were somehow arranged to take care of the patient. This was a secret mission without the knowledge of campus residents.

As anticipated, my cousin, a terminal TB patient, took his last breath after a few days, virtually without medical aid and relatives nearby. Still painful was the last journey of this unfortunate soul. No mourners, nobody to join the funeral procession. Four close relatives, with faces covered, steered the corpse in a glass-covered handcart for the final journey to the cremation ground.

Sixty-two years after the saddest incident of my life, I once again can feel similar frightening vibrations in the atmosphere in the midst of the horrific Covid-19, though on a much larger scale.