โMy children are now growing up and I sometimes wish for a third baby but due to the scare of C-section, I avoid third pregnancy,โ Aarizoo said in a remorseful tone. One morning, a week before her due date, Aarizooโs labour pain started. She called her doctor, who advised her to get admitted to a…
Covid chronicles mightโve started sounding a bit clichรฉd now, but as the threat of the third wave is still looming large, some stories continue to stir for their evocative appeal. Asma was busy with household chores when her mother, Khadija, called in to inform her that she was tested positive for Covid-19. It was April…
โI was so anxious that I started crying,โ Naseem recalls her hospital visit a fortnight later. โI wasnโt worried about myself, but for my baby.โ Just when Naseem had lost the track of cases and concern, she felt those startling signs making one a fitting case of Covid. The symptoms surfaced when a barrage of…
Two boats of two eras saved lives in Kashmir caught in two pestilence periods. But between Now and Then, the vale is struggling to come out of the Shakespearean curse: โA plague on both your houses.โย The change was sudden and shocking. The man who till yesterday would plead the case of his community had…
As young are increasingly falling to the second viral wave in Kashmir, the health infrastructure of the region directly controlled by Delhi has once again made it a desperate situation for the lockdown-laden people. A telling image made much noise on social media lately when efforts were being made to stockpile oxygen in the valley.…
Kashmirโs community concern and crisis management is once again becoming a silver lining amid the gloom created by the second Covid wave. As pyre-lit crematoriums are running short of spaces and JCBs digging โmass gravesโ in cemeteries, a Kashmiri trader is firefighting for life amid Delhiโs deadly wave. Mushtaq Khan is mobilising welfare support for…
When contagion plagued the previous spring, a young Kashmiri photojournalist became part of the โuntouchableโ crowd inside an isolated ward where he experienced a close death encounter and decided to document his dreadful dungeon. After covering blistering riots in Delhi, I was planning to come home when bogeyman grounded all the flights.ย As someone coming…
โMany people made it, some fell and died while battling. The Covid-19 is the biggest nightmare of any survivor. There are injuries that the past year has inflicted upon humankind and the battle is not over yet.โ Such were the times, recounts Aqib as he arrives to offer prayers for the departed soul of his…
Prominent pulmonologist Naveed Nazirโs tweet about the possibility of a second Covid wave has only shifted focus on Kashmirโs vaccination drive still grappling with misinformation and speculations. Inside his crowded clinic at Sanat Nagar junction in Srinagar, a doctor stands isolated. Attending patients behind a transparent glass wall and addressing them through a mike, he…
Covid and cardiac caseloads have redefined the routine practice of conflict-hardened community medicos in Kashmir. In his old-world charm clinic in Srinagarโs Rainawari area, Dr. Majeed Ahangar stands immaculately dressed in a black woollen cap, black feather jacket and brown baggy pants. The poorly-lit infirmary reeks with medicine whiff, while the plywood walls pasted with…