DNA Exclusive: COVID-19 surge, waiting list, and the eternal reality of death

Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary on Wednesday (April 14) discussed the deteriorating situation in the country due to the COVID-19 surge which has forced even the dead to wait in line.

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New Delhi: The COVID-19 pandemic situation has become very serious in the country. It has taken many lives, destroyed many families. Due to sheer negligence, thousands of people are at the risk of facing death.

One who has conquered destiny is called ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’. Today, those who manage to keep themselves alive in these trying times can be certainly called that.

Zee News Editor-in-Chief Sudhir Chaudhary on Wednesday (April 14) discussed the deteriorating situation in the country due to COVID-19 surge which has forced even the dead to wait in line.

It is said that life is fleeting and that it ends in an instant. Death is the absolute truth. No human can escape that fate. But the pandemic has made life look really cheap.

An average Indian spends about 10 years of their life standing in queue. The first queue begins right at birth to obtain a certificate for the same. Then comes the numerous queues such as that for school admission, jobs, rations, bank etc. Now even death has forced humans to wait in the queue.

The number of patients getting infected with the coronavirus in India is increasing rapidly. In the last 24 hours 1.84 lakh cases have been registered. There have been 1027 deaths in the same period.

This surge is quite worrying and in many cities across the country, the crematoriums are running out of capacity.

In Bhopal, so many corpses are coming in every day that now there is a shortage of wood to carry out cremation of the dead.

In Rajkot, people have to wait for over 30 hours for the last rites. Similar reports have come in from Surat, where the cremation ghats are running out of space to store the dead bodies that are waiting to be cremated.

In Bharuch, several bodies were cremated together and in many cases, people weren’t able to attend the last rites of their loved ones.

In Ranchi, 12 bodies had to wait for over a day to be cremated.

Similar scenes were observed in Lucknow, Rajkot, Delhi, Nanded, Durg and other places, where the dead had to wait in a long queue just get cremated.

In Hinduism, ‘Antim Sanskar’ is the final ritual of the 16 ‘sanskars’ and it is said that it should be performed after sunset. But coronavirus has forced to change these traditions as pyres are burning every hour at the crematoriums.

The situation is so bad that a person would be considered fortunate to be cremated within hours of their death.

In general, no one likes to talk about death. But the coronavirus has made it a usual discussion among people. Such is the crisis the country is facing today.