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How ace photographer, associated with The Correspondent, fought a tough battle with Covid 19 with little help from Delhi Government

Subhash Barolia, The Correspondent freelance photographer, fought a tough battle with Covid 19 and emerged victorious with the help of Ayurveda medicines, yoga and simple diet even as the Delhi government response remained apathetic in its fight against corona virus.

As the country went into an extended lockdown from March 24, Subhash, not to shy away in his duty, went on an overdrive, clicking pictures in Delhi. From India Gate to Jahangir Puri, Subhash went to every nook and corner of the capital trying to get the best possible frames.

Though taking adequate precautions, Covid 19 struck Subhash. By the first week of April, the scribe could feel that he could be down by the virus.

From April 10, Subhash could feel weakness and getting mild cough. Two days later, Subhash first took cough medicine. And another two days later, he started sleeping alone. Subhash’s eldest daughter (Ritiksha) is studying in second year, son Vignesh has just taken 12^th exam and youngest boy (Hanush) is studying in class 4^th.

The daring photographer got an inkling that something was amiss. Subhash got into self-quarantine mode and started maintaining distance with his children. However, there was no way to get a test done. Subhash indirectly approached Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal through friends. But to no avail. “Meanwhile, I started reading a lot and doing basic things like yoga and eating proper food and getting my immunity strong,” Subhash recalls.

Nevertheless, a week later (April 22-24), the Delhi Government organized a test mela Subhash got his test done on April 23. On April 25 evening, feeling weak, Subhash took paracetamol for fever and telling his children that he was going to sleep, Subhash locked himself in. The next morning when he got up, there were around a dozen missed calls from doctors, police and friends. A friend informed Subhash that he had tested Covid positive.

The next threatening call was from the cops who wanted to know the details of the family members and their numbers and who all he had been in touch with. Subhash next got in touch with doctors. An ambulance was arranged, which came at 12 on April 26. The entire locality looked out of their windows to see Subhash go.

“Everyone was looking at me as if I had done something very wrong. I was feeling as if they are looking at a criminal. As I sat in the ambulance, one neighbour aunty waved at me. This gave me strength,” recalls Subhash who was starting on a long solitary battle with the virus. However, a phone call to a friend went viral on social media and friends kept calling him to give support.

The ambulance took the photographer Ch Brahm Prakash Ayurvedic Charak Sansthan in Najafargh. “After two hours, when we reached the Ayurveda institute, nobody was ready to talk properly. We were told to go upstairs in the building and look for a bed. I reached the second floor and occupied bed number 74. Later, a ward boy came, leaving a bucket at the door. It had the things I was going to use for the next 18 days,” Subhash says.

The bucket contained a mug, digital thermo meter, a towel, slippers, soap and sanitizer. And from here on started self-healing process.  “There was no treatment as such. We were given Ayurveda medicines. And for food, we were given normal rice and veggies,” he adds. 

After initial one or two days of discomfort and mild fever and coughing, normal vegetarian food, Ayurveda medicine Sitopaladi choorna with honey and Vyoshadi Vati, Vasavaleha, Kantakaryavaleha, karda, gargling, warm water and yoga started showing positive results. Subhash was feeling better.

“I realized I could have done this at home. You don’t require to be in a threatening environment where everyone is treating you as a social outcast. Only the other patients were talking to each other,” Subhash recalls his harrowing experience.

By May 7 and 8, the patients were requesting the doctors for tests. But they wouldn’t agree. On May 9, the government of India said mild or intermediate symptoms cases could be discharged.  The doctors got into a discharging spree. A subsequent test on May 10 result was positive for Subhash.

On May 12, they virtually removed 60 patients out of the hospital without giving any discharge slip or documentation. When the patients objected and created a ruckus, the staff let the patients back. Initially, they were even refusing dinner but by 10 pm gave in and organized food for the patients. The patients who had private vehicles left.

On May 13, staff handed a discharge slip and asked Subhash to leave even though the test was Covid positive. “Without transport how was anyone to leave. So, I requested a friend, who sent a taxi. The driver was scared but somehow I tricked him into believing I was a staff member and he took me home,” he said.

“But upon reaching home, I was not comfortable with a positive report.” It took Subhash all journalistic push and pull to get a result done because by then the Karol Bagh area had been declared a containment zone. On May 27, Subhash went to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and got a test done. The result is negative. Subhash had won a long lone battle, nothing less than a miracle.

The post Ayurveda cures Covid positive photographer appeared first on The Correspondent.

The BRT corridor was one such scheme picked up Dilli’s good ol’ granny Sheila Dikshit. God bless her soul. The idea was to have special lanes for buses to enable citizens commute faster. In principle, the scheme has been working smoothly in Bogota, Colombia and few other cities of the world but for Delhi! Not getting into the specifics, it was a disaster for the megapolis. The scheme was so bad for Delhi that it had to be scrapped all together resulting in draining of Rs 100 crore in making BRT corridor plus Rs 25 crore in dismantling it.

In principle, even the Odd-Even scheme is good. It reduces traffic and results in pollution reduction. Depending on the geography of the city and timings of implementing in the scheme, it comes with a few riders.

Three years ago, one fine day, Delhi’s maverick chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, a byproduct of the Anna Anti-corruption Andolan, decided to implement the scheme. Without any supporting infrastructure, the scheme fell flat. Kejriwal faced the criticism and abuses heaped on him with élan. Nevertheless, the chief minister dared not implement the second part of the scheme in April 2017 with full force and staggered implementing the scheme subsequently. But now as elections are round the corner, to display to the electorate that he is a working CM, he threw in the well-timed scheme knowing fully well that post Diwali, Delhi is a gas chamber.

But post 2017, nothing in Delhi has changed substantially.  The traffic has got messier. The pollution scenario is equally grim. The city has not seen any effective change in public transport system barring a metro line or two. Essentially, things are the same. But what has changed is that people are using more car polling using social media platforms and/or are being forced to use the ineffective public transport system. What Kejriwal and his team have unable been to phantom is given the lateral geography of the city and that work places and business centres are so dispersed that it is not easy for many to meet their commuting requirements based on public transport alone. People use personal cars out of compulsions not out choice.

While in cities like Jakarta, Beijing, Paris or Mexico, the scheme works due to various factors, Delhi works on diverse matrix. In Jakarta, for instance, the odd-even scheme is implemented on specific roads/ areas and for limited timings with adequate alternate public transport, proper parking facilities, and people adhering to traffic norms.

Delhi struggles on many factors and the scheme is implemented in Delhi without proper alternatives. Many representations were made that challenged the implementation of the scheme in the national capital. CNG vehicles were not exempted from the scheme while two-wheelers were though they constitute two-third of total Delhi vehicles. The Delhi Government admitted that public transport in the city was not adequate to exempt two wheelers. Reply to a petition in Delhi High court, the state government said, “Public transport is not adequate at the moment to consider a ban on the two-wheelers.” However, female drivers were exempted.

Petitioners in court countered that the state government had spent crores of rupees on advertisements and promoted the scheme in the guise of curbing air pollution. The Supreme Court of India asked the Delhi government about its logic in implement the odd-even scheme without eliciting a satisfactory reply. 

People are upset on having to deal with half-baked scheme resulting in increased commuting timings. Citizens face difficulty in effectively meeting their daily travel requirements. Let us hope that changes in Delhi are implemented after adequate arrangements are made. By M K Tayal

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