As our society stumbles to normalcy with the third wave of Covid receding, it is time to look back at what we have lost. Covid has affected the lives of people, in ways we can't even imagine. People have lost a lot and some of these losses are irrevocable leaving behind a huge void and a lot of pain. But as they say 'the life goes on'. We bring you individual stories of those who lost, dealt with it, and stood up again.
Rashi Saxena (42), a resident of Noida, knows this sense of loss all too well. Rashi got married to Mohit Saxena in 2003 and they have 16 years old son. Says she, “It all happened in a very short period. My husband was working on a very good profile in a corporate office as a senior manager. When the second wave of Covid pandemic stuck, my husband not only lost his job, but he also lost his life too.”
After his passing away the family faced not only emotional loss but a financial one too as he was the only earning member of the family. There was now the issue of earning the daily bread and some EMI' to pay. As Rashi was a homemaker, she was left wondering what to do.
Says Rashi, "After losing his job, my husband and I decided to become vegetable sellers through a private app." They started to sell vegetables daily and become agents of that app. Both husband and wife worked hard. In the evening they distributed the pamphlets and brochures and in the early morning, they delivered vegetables, door to door. When the world was locked inside the four walls of a home to safeguard themself from Covid, this couple was on the duty to provide for their customers' daily needs. "During those days we contracted Covid. I was able to survive it but my husband passed away," says Rashi.
The biggest challenge for Rashi was now to take care of her senior citizen mother-in-law, who is bed-ridden and to make sure the education of her son continues uninterrupted.
Rashi is still working for that private mobile application and delivering fruits and vegetables door to door every day at 4 am. After that, she helps her mother cook food. Her elderly parents have moved in with her to take care of her mother-in-law in her absence. Then she rushes to her office where she works as a data entry operator. “After my husband passed away I got this data entry job in an insurance company. This is the first job I have done in my life." To fulfill her financial needs, Rashi, is trying different things. Besides her vegetable selling work, she is also doing a business of selling dry fruits from her home in Gaur city 1.
Rashi's is one of the many such stories that one comes across after the Covid pandemic. Like many such survivors, she too fights on, trying to survive the best way she can.