A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS

MASS CREMATIONS, THE SCRAMBLE FOR HOSPITAL BEDS, THE DESPERATE HUNT FOR MEDICAL OXYGEN, THE PUBLIC OUTCRY, THE PERSONAL TRAGEDIES—HOW COVID’S SECOND WAVE HAS EXPOSED THE ABJECT FAILURE OF THE INDIAN STATE

SEARING HEAT Staff at the Ghazipur crematorium in Delhi cart in fresh logs as funeral pyres burn all around them

Bodies are lined up for the final rites before being consigned to the flames at the Hari Nagar crematorium in Delhi on May 2

SAY YOUR PRAYERS

A relative consoles a Covid infected girl as she lies gasping for air at the Indirapuram gurudwara in Ghaziabad, UP. The gurudwara provides free oxygen to those who don’t have access to it.

LIFE SUPPORT

A relative carries a patient as another lugs an oxygen cylinder at a gurudwara in Ghaziabad, UP. The Sikh temple has put up tents where free oxygen is supplied to struggling Covid patients

Massed pyres and serpentine queues of shrouded bodies. Gasping, terrified men and women pleading to be accepted as patients. The broken and bereaved mourning their dead. In New Delhi today, as in any Indian metro, the roads are silent, the bazaars are shuttered. But approach any hospital and you’ll rediscover the familiar clamour of the Indian street, rising to a crescendo in the once hushed ICUs—now rent with the shouts and moans of the desperate and the dying. Of course most of us are hunkered in our homes, carpeing our diems and visiting such scenes through our screens when we’re not fielding calls and text messages from family and friends, or friends of friends, pleading for a hospital bed, an oxygen cylinder, Remdesivir, more oxygen. Expressing our sympathies on Facebook and WhatsApp.