I was speaking to my new cook a few days ago. Those of you who may recall, my old cook Meena aunty passed away from coronavirus this summers. and our new one is from her family.
She was telling me about how coronavirus is overblown, and how no one else in her community had it.

She even told me she visited Meena when she was ill and sat on the same charpai as her, before she was hospitalised, and she was fine. I asked her whether she fell ill shortly after meeting Meena.
She thought about it. And then she said “actually I did, but I dismissed it.”

3-4 days after meeting Meena Aunty, she developed fever and severe body aches like she’s never had before, and a shortness of breath for two weeks. She’s fully recovered now, but she never made the connection that she ever had coronavirus.

And that’s how the illness spread, in every neighbourhood, in every home. Life never altered for anyone though, because no one even really knew what was hitting them. Coronavirus was just a strange, foreign illness, easily dismissed as something the govt keeps babbling on about.

I’m so troubled in the divide between neighbourhoods of urban Pakistani cities, and how coronavirus manifested across these stratas.
So many we knew in our neighbourhoods and circles have/had the virus. My cook insists she saw nothing in her circles. Meena was an anomaly to her.

A great number of cases and deaths will always remain unaccounted for, because of the lack of information dissemination, healthcare drives and check ups. Millions never got this crucial support.
Countless communities vaguely heard of the virus, and continued living unaffected.

Some people had the privilege of knowing what was hitting them, and taking the informed risk of putting their lives in danger every time they held a wedding, a private party, a dawaat.
Some put themselves at risk never knowing there was a risk to begin with. And that’s horrible.