by Tripti Nath
NEW DELHI, June 12 (Xinhua) -- Versha Verma had a tough time arranging an affordable hearse van to a cremation ground after losing her childhood friend to the COVID-19 pandemic. She was so badly shaken that she decided to turn into a corpse carrier overnight.
It was at the peak of the pandemic when people were dying like flies and the images of cremation grounds dominated the news page.
"I wanted to ensure dignity for COVID-19 patients and their caregivers," said Versha, a middle-aged woman in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh.
She contacted a hearse van driver to go from Ram Manohar Lohia hospital to Vaikunth Dham, a cremation ground, and spent 10,000 Rupees (about 137 U.S. dollars) for a 5-km drive.
What the people belonging to economically weaker sections are facing, the middle-class people may also face, she realized.
"After her last rites, I sat on a bench at a vantage point in the same hospital holding a placard that offered free hearse van services and my mobile number."
Versha received nearly 200 calls for help within 24 hours.
"On the very first day, my driver and I lifted the body of a man that had swollen and was weighing 120 kg. My team members and I focused on finding unclaimed bodies to give them a dignified final journey," she said, who has witnessed how family members, out of fear of infection, refused to touch the bodies of their own kin.
Versha's voluntary organization Ek Koshish Aisi Bhi, which means "an effort like this too," now has a team of 12 members. She used to rent vans but as her story spreads, Uttar Pradesh's Urban Development Minister Ashutosh Tandon and Saint Joseph's school presented her two ambulances, with one of them being equipped with a stretcher and an oxygen cylinder.
The organization has responded to calls almost round the clock and sent its ambulance for COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients as far as 300 km away to Banda and Gorakhpur to ferry patients from Lucknow hospitals back to their villages.
"After the hearse van driver demanded a huge sum of money, I tweeted about it and people in power took note of it," she said, adding that the local government had issued strict guidelines for charges for different categories of ambulances.
There has been an unspoken norm in India that prohibits women from going to the cremation ground even to attend the last rites of their own family members. Versha has not let the social taboo break her resolve.
As a postgraduate in English literature from Kanpur University and a national level Judo champion, Versha has also imparted training in self-defense to girls in schools.
Versha's day used to begin with attending to household chores, preparing breakfast for her husband and daughter and feeding her cat, while now her family fears that she may get infected during her special task amid the pandemic.
Her organization has also been distributing water bottles to mourners at two big cremation grounds in Lucknow-Gulale and Baikunth Dham. "Our mobile units also go around Lucknow every day to distribute food packets to rickshaw pullers."
Vishal Singh, another Lucknow-based social worker, has been hailed as the Food Man for his generous charity. He responded to calls for free food and has supplied food to about 750,000 people including migrant workers, police staff and municipal staff, among others. He has also supplied food and oxygen cylinders to people in home isolation.
Vishal, 40, who lost his mother to COVID-19 recently and got infected with the virus, has been back on his feet again.
Vishal's organization Vijay Sri Foundation is supplying 2,500 to 3,000 food packets for free to caregivers of COVID-19 patients, medical attendants, guards and sanitation workers.
He said he has seen caregivers starve to save enough money for the treatment of their family members. "I do not want anybody to go to bed hungry. I want to create a 'Hunger-Free India Force' and my vision is to put an end to starvation," he said.
Meanwhile, Ravi Singh and Dipika, a middle-aged couple in Noida, also took upon themselves the task of preparing food packets for those in need. They distributed food to hundreds of migrant workers who lost their livelihood and were going back on foot to their homes in Bihar State and Uttar Pradesh during the lockdown last year.
Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state and the major hotspot of the second wave of coronavirus outbreak, has witnessed 21,597 deaths and 1,701,072 infections.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, such charitable work by individuals and organizations has brought hope to the country in the fight against the pandemic. Enditem
