Conversations with Chamrajnagar Victims

I broke down seeing this. I was already going through a difficult phase (triggered by Migrant crisis in 2020 that spiralled down to trauma and hopelessness), and it took time for me to pull myself. I got in touch with few local journalists, and was able to talk to most of the families impacted in Chamarajanagar incident.

It’s so sudden for them and especially with no financial cushion, they are very confused, clueless, and shattered. And in such grief, when they ask you questions like - “What did we do to deserve this, what will happen to our kids?  It’s not the disease, it’s criminal negligence that ruined our lives, what will be justice for us” - you don’t even know how to respond, you will be at loss for words and their stories haunt in the nights when you go to sleep.

Sharing some of the stories here, to emphasise on few things

• It’s unacceptable to put ‘deaths from unavoidable and uncontrollable things’ and ‘deaths of criminal negligence or government apathy’ in the same bucket.
• It’s a crime to attribute their loss to the randomness of life or fate or karma, than to collective failure.
• It’s unpardonable if we vote next time on the basis of caste or religion and not on issues like basic healthcare.
• It’s brutal to reduce them to numbers - it’s real humans and families whose lives changed for ever.