Bansilal wakes up by the alarm. 4 am. He has a quick shower and silently dresses himself up with whatever remnants he has of what we call clothing and disappears into the still darkness outside his hut. He walks through galis and mohallas where stray dogs chase him in expectance of something he himself has been exploring – food. He manages to reach his work place – a sort of shed that just about protects humans from a little too sun or rain. Moderate excesses have to be endured – the lesser privileged don’t have the luxury of option. He makes himself a glass of tea quietly and starts doing what he is best at – kneading flour for delicious golgappes or paani puris at it is called in some other parts of the country. His boss has many a counters that sell these. But in COVID times they are all forbidden to stand for needs. And so he has to do all of this away from the eyes and even smell of the police. For once he and his boss thank the overpopulation of the country making it impossible to follow every anatomic detail the vast land has to offer. He has to finish by 8am for that is when the khakhis arrive with their ruthless laathis. He has learnt the art of bribing them with his hand made golgappas and paani, sometimes with chay and at other times when they are really red, with some money as well. Bansilal does not know how morality spells. It is irrelevant to his strata. They pine for basics. Roti kapda aur makaan. The last, he’s aware is now only for his next avatar. His boss does not force anything on him but has agreed to part with what he works for, even unofficially. His boss believes in being a good citizen but first, a complete human. And he knows Bansilal needs the twilight hours to feed his own. They manage. 

Sheth Avantilal is dying. He contracted COVID somehow. At 85 he has little chance of making it. But his son does not want to blame destiny without trying. So Sheth is in ICU on one of the finest beds of the numero one corporate hospital of the city. But can money buy life ? Breaths are not marketed or the rich would never get Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome. He is on a ventilator that helps delaying the inevitable. Ironically sometimes these machines give time to breathe to the family ! Avanitlal Sheth has been one of best share brokers of his times. He beat the market more often than not and has had clientage accordingly. The rich invest in the rich. And then they get richer. Money helps build money. And he still worked on telephone and his clients vouched for his intuitions. Until a week back he had fever for a couple of days and now near death. They call it unpredictable. Even at 85. The rich. And those who are less fortunate are ready at 50 to make room for others in this world. What an irony. Avantilal pulled on for a month. His son came every day, sat by his side, asked the treating doctor questions, very professionally, more to beat monotony than with a sense of genuine inquiry. He left no stone unturned. And when finally Sheth Avantilal flattened even on the ventilator, the bill was paid and almost put up on a notice board for the world to see how a doting son fought for an extra month of life for a dying father. It would be remembered for generations. The son would become a legend. And Sheth ? Never mind.

Lata works for household chores. She’s 35 and has 4 children to feed. The government has clamped a lockdown. For those on daily wages, blood runs parallel with money. One stops and so does the other. Her husband died an year ago of alcohol. On her money. She sneaks through societies and behind bus stops evading the police who sometimes knowingly don’t look at her. Their own blood isn’t much guaranteed to run. So they understand. She finishes 10 homes everyday and by then it is evening. The lockdown has brought this down to 6. The lesser amount of work does not make her happy. The lesser money earned agonises her. Its like 2 children will go hungry. She banks for her health on her liver and adipose tissue storage. So now she finishes by noon and has to buy daily raw material for food to be cooked and other essentials on the way home. Now she half buys. She does not know what CORONA is except that it is some germ that is killing some fast and others like her, slowly. But she enjoys playing Ludo with her 2 sons. Daughters have to watch. Perhaps lifetime. They can’t play. She expects the world to change a bit post CORONA. So that girls can play Ludo.

Kusum, all but 45 has rheumatoid arthritis and has been a diabetic for 10 years. They had good money before and so she took treatment for both until about 3 years back when their family business suffered losses so much so that they had to sell their ancestral house and her jewels too. She now took monthly doses of drugs to be taken weekly. Remedy has to be optimized to just about work – more to sustain life than to relieve agony. She got COVID because of an ex neighbor she had gone to visit. That neighbor died. It seemed her turn now. Kusum’s husband loved her dearly and knew all about the virus. So when she started feeling dizzy he suspected the worst. And had been rushing from one hospital to another – government and public sector ones as he was left with no money to even think of corporates. Smaller set ups in private were not taking COVID. He did not know anyone ‘higher up’ to get his wife a bed for survival. There were many hypchondriacs in the city admitted unjustifiably but their pain was documented genuine when it was not.  When money speaks no one checks the spellings ! She became breatheless soon and her husband knew she was dying. He did not even want to play God and try and miraculously save her. He just wanted her to die while he tried. It would have mattered little to her because time does not define future for the dead. But he would have to be satisfied he did not give up before her physiology did. On her own, Kusum had been happy dying home in the company of her family. Her ghost did not mind. His soul did.

Ten years on, Bansilal still works making  Paani puris. He’s one of the best in the city. COVID had gone eight years back. The police only wanted a few golgappas. But this was not bribe. It was just a gesture now. His life hadn’t changed much except that he did not have to wake up at 4am like those days. His family lived in his native village. Their lives were maintained at the level they were. The lockdown days had not mattered to him much. To him it was as if God asked for a lockdown after decades of running lives just as  customers ask for the  masala puri at the end of the paani puri order. For free.

A decade on, Sheth Avantilal’s son continued to heap praise for all he did for his father. He felt proud looking at the Sheth’s smiling photo on the wall. The brokerage business was good as usual. It had been down for a couple of years during the lockdown days but had subsequently recovered and so had their fortune. They continued to have their lunch in silver plates with silver spoons and vacationed in five stars as always. He hardly remembered the lockdown months. Except that he sat daily with his dying father and questioned doctors and gave his best. After all God being the universal broker for everyone’s life had charged but a minor commission in the form of the one month bill on Sheth Avantilal’s timely demise.

Lata grew old now since it had been ten years from the lockdown. Children had  also grown and while the sons left her for greener pastures, one daughter was still not married and so both Lata and the daughter visited the same homes to help finish chores. Now they did 15 homes together. And they had more money as expenditure had gone to less than half. She’d bought herself a few conveniences not luxuries, like a television, a refrigerator and a couple of ceiling fans. The lockdown time for her was as if she’d fallen sick and could not attend her work and so got half paid for that time. The world had not changed as she thought it would. But yes, only  her unmarried daughter now played Ludo with her.

Kusum’s husband also died 5 years after the lockdown. So it had been 5 years from now. Their only daughter remembered how her father almost cried himself to death. The family never recovered  the business as before. She was taken care of by one of her maternal uncles. There was no photo in the house that she lived to remind her of Kusum. She had vague memories of her mother. But she knew her father tried in vain and still could not get her admitted to any hospital for lack of money or pehchaan power. COVID had devastated the family more than it already had been before the lockdown days. She preferred not to remember that period of her life and was ready with the new family that had adopted her. In fact she locked the lockdown period of her memory closet. While Kusum had been abstract for her, her father’s image also got fuzzy over time. But for her father, life had lost meaning the day Kusum died. He lived a dead life for 5 years.

In the perennial debate of life versus livelihood here are glaring examples from everydays. While both are essential, livelihood does not breathe or run or perspire or even laugh. Life does all of these and even cries, stands, pulls, sleeps, wakes up to sleep again and to wake up again and again. Till the time it does. Livelihood manages. Life cannot. It either is or isn’t. Life without a livelihood is difficult, painful but livelihood without life is an imagination. Lives are remembered, laughed upon, cried for; livelihoods change, are forgotten, sometimes even buried. While livelihood decorates our lives, makes it worth living, life doesn’t give a damn to livelihood. Livelihood makes sense only to the living. The dead don’t get up and go to work.

What should be preferred ? life of a few or livelihood of many. Depends on what you choose. Something that is just once or the other.

Dr Sapan C Pandya

Consultant Clinical Immunologist and Rheumatologist

Ahmedabad