Corona crisis has brought to light the divide between the haves and have-nots: Sekhar Kammula

We had just begun shooting for a new schedule of my film — Naga Chaitanya-Sai Pallavi-starrer Love Story — when the news of the

lockdown

broke.

Incidentally, we were shooting on a terrace near my home in Padmarao Nagar. After just one day of shoot, we had to pack up abruptly. It was like a bolt from the blue; to see the world come to a standstill the way it did was beyond comprehension. But after seeing the struggles of scores of have-nots, my troubles seemed irrelevant.

The street where I live overlooks the compound wall of

Gandhi Hospital

, which has been at the forefront of the fight against coronavirus in Hyderabad. Although I wasn’t too perturbed personally, the sense of fear and paranoia that the pandemic unleashed hit me when I heard stories of patients who tested positive for Covid-19 escaping from the hospitals and kin of patients manhandling the doctors. People didn’t know what was happening. Soon the police stepped in to protect the patients and the doctors. The whole locality would look like a high security zone with cops on vigil round the clock.

Every day, I would see scores of GHMC personnel,

sanitary workers

and medical support staff pass by my home. Seeing how overworked they were, some fellow residents began offering them water, tea and other refreshments. That’s how I began to interact with them. As the cases kept rising, the government decided to convert Gandhi Hospital into a full-fledged facility to treat only Covid-19 positive patients. So many poor people suffering with other ailments who came for treatment had to be taken to either

Osmania General Hospital

or Fever Hospital, Nallakunta. With no transport facilities available due to the lockdown, many ASHA workers (Accredited Social Health Activists) walked all the way to Nallakunta to attend to the patients. Isolation wards were full and support staff were working day in and day out. While we were all confined within our homes in the past two months it was these people who were out there, risking themselves, doing everything they could to curb the infection. We can never thank them enough.

More than anything else, what the pandemic has brought to the fore is the divide between the haves and the have-nots. I see my children — Vandana, who is in Inter First year and Vaibhav, who’s in Class IX — attending online classes every day. And then there are scores of those born to migrant labourers and those doing fringe jobs whose lives have been completely uprooted. The civil society has done great service in this hour of need no doubt, but I’m afraid it might not be enough. As we set out to restore normalcy, I fervently hope we come out of the bubble we were all living in, disconnected from those less privileged than us, who work ceaselessly to provide the comforts we take for granted, and unite to build a more equitable tomorrow.

(As told to Karthik.Pasupulate@timesgroup.com)