Araria: “We sold two of our goats for Rs 11,000 and our cow for Rs 10,000 to arrange money for my parent’s treatment,” said 18-year-old Soni Kumari, a resident of Raniganj block in Bihar’s Araria district. “But even after spending Rs 2,50,000 (they had borrowed the rest), we could not save them.”
Soni and her two siblings — a 12-year-old sister and a 14-year-old brother — also lost their mother soon after.
“After our father died, no one would lend us any more money. My father had been the sole earning member of the family, and with him gone, they were apprehensive about whether we will be able to return the loan. We were forced to discontinue our mother’s treatment at the Raniganj hospital, and she too passed away on 7 May,” Soni told ThePrint.
Her father had died of Covid just four days before.
The siblings had brought their mother home from hospital when they found they couldn’t afford her treatment anymore, but tried to rush her back when she came critical. She, however, died on the way.
With the fear of Covid raging in the village, Soni and her siblings have been left to come to terms with their loss on their own since villagers have been maintaining a safe distance from the family.
“Ab ghar soona lagta hai. Itne saal sath gujare toh ab samjh nahin aa raha kuch (We have spent all our life with our parents. The house feels empty without them, can’t figure out anything anymore),” said Soni’s sister.
Their father’s bike remains parked outside the house while the small medicine shop he ran is locked up.
Located about 350 km away from Bihar’s capital city Patna, Bishanpur village panchyat has 14 wards. Soni’s parents — 46-year-old Birendra Mehta and 38-year-old Priyanka Devi — were residents of ward number 7, with 373 other families.
At the beginning of the month, the ward reported seven Covid cases, among them Birendra and his wife. The other five patients are still in home quarantine.
Given the stigma and a high degree of misinformation surrounding the disease, the couple’s children had to arrange a hurried burial. This has only added to their grief.
The family received compensation from the state government, as part of the government’s initiative to help families of Covid casualties, but money is the last thing on their minds right now.
Grappling to come to terms with the burden of their loss, the three have given no thought to their future.
Last week, the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) asked the health ministry to ask hospitals to take declarations from parents being admitted about whom their children should go to in the event of the their death. The move, however, came too late to be of any help to the family.
Additional Chief Secretary, Bihar WCD, Atul Prasad, said the state government had already alerted district magistrates in the beginning of May that existing state guidelines should be followed in the case of Covid orphans. “The Bihar government has a scheme called Parvarish Yojana, under which such children will be take care of in child care homes,” said Prasad, adding that the primary concern in such cases is to ensure that the children do not fall prey to trafficking.
While Prasad did not specify the procedure that will be followed for the Araria siblings, the latter can only hope the guidelines will apply in their case too.
Soni and her siblings, meanwhile, are busy arranging for their parents’ shradh (final rituals performed after a someone’s death) on 16 May, which they expect close family members to attend.
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‘Had to bury them, couldn’t cremate’
‘Papa dead kiya to kisi ne khana tak nahin khilaya (After our father died, no one even offered us any food),” said the bewildered 12-year-old as she sat in the room that had been her parents’.
Birendra and Priyanka had big dreams for the family and their children. The couple, who were only educated till class 8, wanted their children to study and “become officers”, the children recalled.
Soni’s sister pointed towards the refrigerator that her father bought in 2017. “He used to say that we will build a big pucca house soon.”
The day their mother died on the way to hospital, the Mehta siblings told ThePrint, “village head Saroj Kumar Mehta said ‘Covid body ghar lana theek nahin hai’ (It’s not safe to bring a Covid body home)”.
“So we took her body (also) to the nearby fields and buried her there,” said Soni. A few days before, the siblings had had to bury their father at the same place. “The villagers said if we cremate the bodies, the whole area will be infected. So it is better to bury them. My cousins dug up the graves and when no one came to pay their last respects to them, I buried my mother alongside my father,” she said.
Meanwhile, her brother has been trying to help his sisters. He carries his father’s mobile phone with him, answering phone calls from NGOs and social activists that come to offer them help.
The siblings claimed to have got monetary help from people.
“We have received some 2,000 messages from the bank, informing us of money that people have sent for us. But we are busy with the shradh preparations now and will go to the bank after that,” said Soni.
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‘A dangerous funeral’
“Most of us got Covid from those (migrant workers) who returned to the villages from different states [after lockdowns were imposed there]. Many here had attended funerals of people who had died of some mysterious illness, in adjoining areas,” Panchayat head Saroj Mehta told ThePrint
Soni parents too had attended one such funeral — that of Priyanka’s father, on 16 April in Purnea district.
A week after this, Birendra developed fever and cough. On 27 April, his condition deteriorated, and he tested positive for Covid on 1 May. Priyanka tested positive too, but the three siblings, who were tested on 5 May, returned negative results.
“We took my father to Raniganj hospital. He was then referred to Forbesganj. Forbesganj referred him to Purnea Sadar. Do din mein aspatalon ne itna ghoomaya ki dam tod diya (In two days, the hospitals made him move about so much that he died),” said Soni.
Their mother’s treatment had to be stalled because of lack of money.
“Babu, hum nahin bachbo, hum marjahibo (I will not survive, I will die),” the 12-year-old recalled these as their mother’s last words.
“We got the Covid death certificate for my mother. So the district administration has given us a cheque for Rs 4 lakh as compensation (the Bihar government is giving Rs 4 lakh compensation to families of the Covid dead),” Soni told ThePrint. “But at the time of my father’s death, we were not in our right frame of minds. We were not given the Covid death certificate and we left in hurry. The BDO has promised that we will be given help,” she added.
Raniganj Circle Officer Raman Singh told ThePrint that the administration is waiting for their father’s death certificate to initiate the process of giving the siblings compensation for his death.
“We have already handed over a cheque for Rs 4 lakh to the children (for the death of their mother). We are waiting for the death certificate of their father. Once we receive that, we will initiate the process (of paying them compensation for their father’s loss to Covid),” he said.
Meanwhile, the village head said they will support the children as a society. “There’s no problem of money now as they have received enough,” Mehta said.
The siblings, however, maintained that no amount of money would compensate for their loss, and that they still felt they had been left alone. The future, they said, looked gloomy to them.
“Kitna bhi paisa milega, maa baap to nahin milega na (No matter how much money we get, we will not get our parents back),” said the 12-year-old as she pointed to her parents’ graves. “The one near the tree is mummy’s, the other is of our father.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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