In the month of May in India, the temperature is high and the humidity is unbearable. Proving that you died, and that too of Coronavirus, is extremely hard. Since there was no doctor who treated you and no hospital that admitted you, your family cannot procure a death certificate. They are now in the fifth circle of hell. However, in this hell, sufferings do not end with death. Your journey in life is over, cruelly cut short by the virus. No one however is coming back with a cylinder. Their family is similarly searching for oxygen cylinders to comfort their patients. Many of your neighbours are there too, lying on the street with you. To your surprise, you find that you are not alone there. You have now entered the fourth circle of hell. You are now literally lying on the street gasping for air, while your family is trying desperately to buy an oxygen cylinder for you at ten times the market price. The chances are high that they themselves are also infected.

“No vacancy” board greets in every hospital you try. You need oxygen – but before that, you need a hospital bed. You gasp for air, but too little is available.

You have now entered the third circle of hell. Seeking a miracle cure for this yet undiagnosed ailment (which millions in India are now doing) signifies the loss of control over your own life. The rest can only wait for a miracle cure. With precious few resources available for healthcare, only a minuscule of the population has access to quality healthcare. Health care is not a fundamental right in India. A country of 1.4 billion literally has no credible public health. Even if you can find one, either the waiting is too long to render it useless, or the price tag is too steep. You are frantically searching the internet to find a doctor to consult, but you cannot find one. That is when you have entered the second circle of hell. You have to wait till you cannot wait anymore. Even with a year to prepare for the inevitable second wave, COVID-19 tests kits are non-existent in India. You suspect you are COVID-19 positive, but you cannot confirm it.

The first circle of hell starts with loss of taste and smell. This hell also has nine circles, where sufferings in each of those circles are differentiated, yet real. His callous indifference to the potential loss of human lives, their sufferings and the indignities in death is what this hell is all about. India is now the case study of “what not to do” in a pandemic, thanks to the conceit, egotism, and self-approbation of the Modi government.Īlso read: Modi’s Gamble, and How Many Lives It Will Costĭespite warnings of the second wave by eminent epidemiologists, Modi’s hubris encouraged him to continue with regional elections where millions assembled (without masks and without any semblance of social distancing) to cheer the “dear leader”, and to ensure uninterrupted Hindu celebration of the Kumbh Mela, which by all indication was expected to be a super-spreader. India is now in the proverbial “Ante-Inferno” with a clear inscription written all over her, “Abandon all hope, you who enter here”. Yet the reference is fair and this column is designed to explain why. The sufferings in India are not imaginary, but real, taking place while people are still alive, and most importantly, whatever their sins are, the fairness and proportionately of the punishments are definitely questionable. Although the punishment was severe, Dante’s poem portrayed them as fair and proportionate to the sins committed. Hell was used as a metaphor for human suffering for sins committed on earth. He left it to our imagination.ĭante and his imaginary guide Virgil were travelling through nine circles of hell on their way to heaven.

His column meticulously analysed the failures of the Narendra Modi government, but did not explain why Dante’s Inferno is an apt metaphor for the present crisis. He found the sufferings in Dante’s Inferno, an epic poem depicting Dante’s travel through hell on his way to heaven, to be an apt metaphor for the COVID-19 sufferings in India. In his opinion column dated Apfor the Financial Times, Dr Zarir Udwadia, a renowned physician consultant in Mumbai, compared the graphic images of the sufferings in the COVID-19 wards in India with Dante’s ‘Inferno’.

Thank you coronavirus helpers poem