The Vagabond

Sneha and Nikhil were trying to have a baby since long. They had been married for 8 years now. They had tried everything from quacks to infertility specialists. Yet, nothing seemed to help. With two IVF failed, they had almost given up.

Sneha was Sam’s next door neighbor. She would be Sam’s go to person when his parents would be late. However, when covid started Sneha was the 1st to take plunge towards the humanitarian cause. Being a trained ICU nurse, she was posted with the most critical of patients. She forbade Sam to visit her for fear of passing him the infection.

She never realized that she had missed her cycle. She kept working during the initial months, unaware of her morning sickness, attributing everything to stress. When the cases started decreasing and by the time she realized, she was already in her second trimester. Now, she got worried. Luckily, for her the cases had started decreasing for the time being.

The good you do comes back to you, but never immediately. Realizing that such an important resource would not be effectively used, the corporate hospital she worked in laid her off citing decreased revenue due to covid. She didn’t lose her heart. May be it was for good. She started taking good care of herself and also volunteered to take care of Sam when his mom went for work. She was still a few months away from the due date. May be by then, someone would be able to come from home to help her when the baby would be born. She was worried but she did not make it obvious.

Sam was delighted that within a few months, there would be a little baby and he eagerly started his own countdown. As luck would have it, the baby arrived a little early. By then, her family in India was struggling with covid. No one could be with her, niether could she even rejoice. Where the entire family was suffering from this disease, with few of them critical, how could she even be happy.

Family is not always blood. Sam and his mom became the baby’s family till Sneha came out of her depression. Sam became the big brother who even learnt to change nappies, feed the baby and take care of him single handedly.

In this year of Covid where death was too common, life continued. There was no celebration however. If somewhere someone lost his struggle, the nature continued it’s cycle and a new life sprang up somewhere else.

In all the societies and all the religions, birth and death are two events which are celebrated with great vigour. In 2020, covid changed everything. Marriages were held on Zoom, so were the prayer meetings for those who died. For those born, there was no celebration whatsoever for fear of hurting those who had lost the battle.

I am writing about covid pandemic from a child’s viewpoint. You can read the previous posts here : A cancelled vacation and no more play , The online school , The dusty cricket bat , The online exams,Covid strikes !!

I am taking my blog to the next level with Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa The Blogchatter