It had been raining heavily in Unnao, an impoverished district in the hinterlands of Uttar Pradesh. The Ganga runs through it. The rain swelled the waters and turned the banks into slush. The river gave up the dead—hundreds of putrefying corpses of Covid-19 patients, which had been buried in graves barely three-foot deep. Their families were too poor to afford wood for their cremation.
Before Covid-19 struck Unnao, wood for a pyre cost around Rs 500. It now sells for Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000. Add priests, attendants and samagri, the bill to reach paradise comes to around Rs 10,000. Even as thousands of compassionate citizens struggle to help coronavirus victims get food, oxygen, medicines and hospital beds, a malevolent beast has risen to profit from horror. He blackmails families begging for oxygen by charging them astronomical prices. He sells empty cylinders and faulty oximeters.