Bylane cremations, home births, ration queues — ground reporter’s camera captures Covid-hit UP

Over 28 days, ThePrint's Jyoti Yadav travelled across eight UP districts recording the fallout of the second Covid wave. Here are some moments from the journey.

To ensure that lockdowns and school closures don't end with girl students dropping out, ‘Apna Taleem Ghar’ an initiative by the youth collective Awadh Peoples Forum, holds open classes for girls from the economically weaker sections of Ayodhya.

New Delhi: As the second Covid wave, which had hit India in March-April, started abating, ThePrint’s Jyoti Yadav travelled across East Uttar Pradesh to document the fallout of the pandemic.

Over 28 days, from 22 July to 19 August, she traveled more than 4,500 kilometres, across eight UP districts — Pratapgarh, Prayagraj, Banda, Chitrakoot, Sonbhadra, Varanasi and Gorakhpur — observing and recording, not just the ravages caused by the pandemic, the stories of job loss, poverty and human loss, but also stories of survival.

Many of her observations were about the impact of the pandemic on women and how they faced the challenges thrown their way. In Banda, she recorded the workings of a women’s rights group, Chingari Adalat, that was encouraging women in the area to raise their voices, be survivors and not victims. In Gorakhpur, she met women who were supporting families through the earnings of their self-help groups, after many of their menfolk lost their livelihoods during the pandemic. In Prayagraj, she looked at issues of menstrual hygiene.

In between, she documented the impact of the pandemic on central schemes such as the midday meal and ‘Skill India‘.

Here are a few snapshots from her journey.

Cycles stand abandoned, as a plucky youngster from Gorakhpur — along with his neighbours — dives into the flooded river, with the hope of catching fish that he can then sell to earn some money for his family.

In Varanasi, a man bids farewell to his mother. With the city’s Manikarnika Ghat — known for its ever-burning funeral pyres flooded — make-shift arrangements for cremations were being made in the lanes leading to the ghat.

School uniforms lay discarded as the pandemic forced schools to remain closed for about a year-and-a-half. But in UP’s Sonbhadra district, this group of children found an excuse to dress up in their uniforms as they gathered to collect the dry ration being distributed in lieu of mid-day meals.

A broken-down lane in Adhawan village in Banda district’s Baberu block. The tap, installed under the Central government’s ‘Har Ghar Nal Se Jal’ scheme, looks as forlorn as the toddler sitting alone outside the house.

Twenty-three-year-old Radha, a mother of two in UP’s Chitrakoot district, has helped birth many children during the pandemic. As Covid lockdowns restricted access to medical help, home births went up, with midwives and female family members in attendance.

Their faces may be half-covered by their veils, but their fingers move expertly as they use the afternoon to make incense sticks for sale. In Gorakhpur’s Jigina Bhion village, 18 self-help groups have given women the means to support their families, as the pandemic and lockdowns left many of their husbands jobless.

A house in a Prayagraj slum, where many girls had no access to sanitary pads during the pandemic, with the lockdowns robbing their families of their meagre earnings. Menstrual hygiene is anyway compromised here as the silence around menstruation often pushes many to use dirty rags to stem the blood flow.

In Banda district, a women’s rights group, Chingari Adalat, is encouraging women to not suffer in silence and raise their voice against abuse and injustice. Here, a domestic violence survivor narrates her story to the Chingari Adalat team.

(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)