Poor people all over the world rely on extended families to get through disasters. They don’t always have access to systems we regard normal in North America. India’s COVID orphans are a case in point. When several generations around them perish, they are literally on their own. The double tragedy is their loving parents and grandparents could be the cause of this.
What Happens to India’s COVID Orphans After That?
India’s marginalized children – through relinquishment or abandonment – find refuge in numerous orphanages where they hope to find new homes. That’s because institutional care is not conducive to optimal development, and why they call them adoption agencies. North Americans may apply to adopt one of these lost bereft children, subject to stringent checks in both countries.
India’s COVID orphans are the dark side where adult carelessness takes us. That’s because COVID will not spread that radically, if we all take sensible precautions. But unfortunately we don’t all do so. Some of us refuse to adopt thpse measures, because we believe that is our an inalienable right. That may well be the case, except for the fact our unintended victims could be little children wandering the streets.
A Case in Point – Mass Exposure at Kumbh Mela Festival
The Kumbh Mela festival is a major Hindu religious event, lasting from mid-January to early March. Devotees cannot wish it away, any more than we could our own holy days. Their ritual involves semi-immersion in water to atone for their sins where the Ganges, Yamuna, and Sarasvati rivers flow together. Unfortunately face masks seem to get forgotten in the moment.
India’s burgeoning population has turned this into a super-spreader event. But the Kumbh Mela festival is more than just entering the sacred waterway. There are also religious discourses by hamarshi seers, mass feedings of monks or the poor, and entertainment spectacles.
One seer will come in contact with many, many people in the process. And if they receive the infection they may take it back home with them, even to little children. We could do it too, if we were there. In fact, some of us may already be unwittingly doing so in the course of our normal routines back home.
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Preview Image: Bridge to Kumbh Mela
