Mango Diaries-Page Four-Times of Covid and a Tribute to Unknown Soldiers

 

Mango Diaries continues to evolve and surprise me with its sweetness and ability to charm its audience. I guess more than anything its the positive intent and inspirational real life stories that causes that bell to ring.

Anyways in this edition of Mango Diaries, I seek to focus on how I managed to steer this negative mind of mind to something very positive and cheerful. It goes back to the times of Covid-1st Wave, initially the dark times accompanied by an eerie stone like silence and nothing but the shrill and occasional sound of the passing Ambulance could be heard.

It was at the same time I had also lost my beloved father. Barely had i consigned my fathers mortal remains to the flames, within the next few days, I found myself in the ICU ward of a Hospital battling Covid myself. Such tough times, no one was allowed to visit me, surrounded by other patients, it was extremely depressing. It had come to an extent where I even contemplated running away from the hospital but guess I had to fight out loneliness in the darkness of the tunnel to see light at the end of it. More Bad news came in with a friend in Kolkata died due to Covid. More cobwebs started making its presence in my already delirious mind. Nothing was working right. I was clearly down and out of form.

It was then a thought struck me. I was down and out but clearly I was out of the worst of times. There were more people in a far more serious condition than I was. I had to Help and help in a big way. I decided to start a Whatsapp group to help Covid patients. Initially it was a small group of five-six family members who decided to chip in with whatever small help. But small help was not enough for an epidemic that was gaining humongous proportions. So i went to social media and requested interested people to join the help group.

Slowly the group grew, unknown Covid warriors joined the group and started to help. There were all kinds of help requests coming in for Food, Medicine, Oxygen and Most Importantly Hospital Beds. The Day would start with requests and end with endless requests. Situation was becoming grim but the soldiers of our Help Group marched on with no other objective in mind but to Help another stranger. Slowly we found that we could fulfil a few requests, many donors and a Few dozen Hospital Beds. 

There came a Time when the group was working round the clock just to save an unseen, unheard of face. In a few cases we could actually move patients from one Hospital with receding Oxygen support to Hospitals which had adequate Oxygen supplies. We managed to break Religion barriers wherein a Hindu Woman gave her blood to a pregnant Muslim Lady. We even managed to get the employees of a tech corporate in India to develop an App, That I had to good fortune to name as Dhanvantri app to give us the real time status of the availability of Beds in Hospitals across the country.

We did manage to save quite a few lives, the war was won as the epidemic showed signs of wearing down, I had battled the cobwebs of negativity and emerged victorious. I have lived to tell a beautiful story of how Humanity had won a huge battle against a raging epidemic. I write to tell the story of my loving comrades whose heart showed immense bravado and compassion just to help another unknown Human being. It would be gross injustice to name them because there are so many of them and each of them came up with herculean efforts in raging times. For the kind of effort and team spirit they showed in battling the epidemic, and for saving quite a few lives, these unknown soldiers are a bunch of very sweet Mangoes in my Mango Diaries.

I wanted to battle the darkness of negativity, I needed something to cling on to at that point of time. I made new relationships, new friends, unknown soldiers who decided to battle the pandemic along my side. Friends, always keep Sweet mangoes by your side, you never know when you need them. A Mango is never easy to pluck for it grows at great heights, Reach out to them, become trustworthy and you will be able to enjoy their sweetness....Keep Glowing and Bring in Light in the lives of others, I have made this a mantra in my life. Have You?