26 April 2021
A new-found fear of COVID-19 has besieged Dhanaura Silvernagar village in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district amid an unsparing second wave of the pandemic.
Sunil Kashyap
A new-found fear of COVID-19 has besieged Dhanaura Silvernagar village in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district amid an unsparing second wave of the pandemic.
Sunil Kashyap
“I do not know what has happened to your village,” my mother told me during a call on 25 April. She was speaking of the Dhanaura Silvernagar village in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district, where I lived with my family till the age of 22. “News of death is coming from everywhere,” she said. My mother was among the many family members, friends and associates who told me that they were witnessing an unprecedented number of deaths and grief in my village. About fifteen people in Dhanaura Silvernagar have died within ten days, they said. While not all those who died were tested for COVID-19, a new-found fear of the virus has besieged their lives amid an unsparing second wave of the pandemic.