Public Story
Death in the time of Corona
The garden city is burning and gasping
The narrative of the pandemic has changed drastically from wave one to wave two. While the focus last year was on feeding and helping the homeless and the needy, this time around the focus has been on dealing with high mortality rates.The pandemic has caught the government on the backfoot and they are only able to react but not plan ahead hence chasing one problem after another. The air in Bengaluru is being polluted at an alarming rate. With the electric crematoriums working overtime and need for a maintenance break, new venues have been created for the purpose. The most recent one is a quarry being converted into crematorium where wood is being used to burn the dead. Disposal of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) has become difficult and people Have been instructed to throw them into the pyre adding more toxins into the air while some others have been leaving them on the graves at burial grounds. In the near future we could be dealing with very high pollution rates infecting the lungs further. As ambulances queue up outside crematoriums, ambulance drivers say “The wait to offload the body is very long, as long as 24 hours and the engine needs to be running to keep the freezer running as the body will start rotting and smelling if they shut off the engines. We require a supply of diesel as well if we need to keep the engine running.”
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