Vows And Woes – Reflections From A Pandemic

Quiz master Phanindra Ivatury of the Netherlands shares a short story he wrote in 2023, inspired by a disturbing conversation he encountered during a post-pandemic, vaccinated visit to his country of origin, India.

UTRECHT (The Netherlands), June 2 (Bernama) -- A few movie titles have an impactful stay on our minds even after decades.  One such film (and its title) that was struck in my mind since eighties stars Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver.  It’s a 1982 Hollywood film called “The Year of Living Dangerously”. 

Every time someone walks down the memory lane to reminisce the casualty horrors of the pandemic hit year of 2020, the above title pops out from my head into conversations. 2020 can be aptly termed as “The Year of Living Dangerously”. A shocking true story (shared below) which I encountered during a trip to my origin country India post pandemic, lends all the more credibility to the aftermath caused by that year.

 After a long-drawn battle with the biggest catastrophe in our living memory, global humanity finally found some proverbial ray of light at the end of a treacherous tunnel in the form of COVID-19 vaccines.

Read on

The resultant opening up of the international tourism sector in 2021 helped me and my family travel to our native land India from our current base in the Netherlands.  As we took the plane to Hyderabad (a South Indian city), the lingering excitement of things to do in India kept (blissfully) filling up our mind space. 

One of the most exhilarating items lined up on our agenda was to attend a quintessential  ‘big fat Indian wedding’ as grand occasions and events to revel in, dried up drastically since 2020 due to the global intensity of the pandemic. 

Thankfully, we had a wedding invite this time round, as a close friend’s daughter was tying the knot during our ‘vaccinated’ vacation period.  The bride was my daughter’s senior during her early schooling times in India.  The wedding invite reaffirmed the fact that social life was again albeit sluggishly limping back towards pre-pandemic times.  The kind of social life which the COVID battered world demanded and deserved. 

We landed and bonded with our extended family in Hyderabad and after a while, agreed to attend a ‘high tea’ at our immediate neighbour’s house despite being jetlagged a bit. 

The ‘Auroras’, our hosts for that afternoon were a couple in their late forties, with a mutual friendship spanning well over a decade. They were more hyped up than us about our homecoming. 

“My son who is working abroad was here a few months back to get married” the man said after ushering us in, and exchange of pleasantries. 

“A COVID times marriage” he added, reaching out to me with a wedding album in his hand.  I extended my heartiest congratulations curiously browsing through the album sheets. 

“The event must have cost you a bomb” I queried the man amazed at the wedding grandeur depicted in the pictures. 

“No, not at all, on the contrary, we gained on account of the pandemic” he replied.  

Looking at my perplexed face, he smiled and continued, “As the lake side star hotel we wanted to book for the wedding was almost out of business due to pandemic restrictions, we were allowed a ‘never before heard’ kind of discount on the food and the banquets for a short gathering of fifty people”. 

Before I could extract a positive response from within, he continued further “That was the happy part of the wedding”. 

I looked puzzled. 

“What do you mean happy part of the wedding?” I probed. 

The man took a deep breath and said “The sad part is, half the elderly in those wedding pictures you just saw, are no more. They were all consumed by the pandemic within a span of two months, ” he concluded. 

Trying my best to absorb the shock, I relayed a pale glance at my daughter who was all gung-ho on the flight about her friend’s wedding dress shopping plans for the next day.

Clearing my throat, I mustered some courage and told Mr. Aurora that we have a wedding invite on our trip agenda also adding a dash of positive reasoning that we can now mingle with people since all of us have now built a safety net around us through vaccines.

The man stopped sipping his tea and looked at me.  I could sense that my reasoning didn’t seem to him as a direct fit to the situation. 

After a while he said “Sir, the word ‘vaccinated’ is being thrown around rather casually these days.  I have encountered a number of people who have been re-attacked by the virus even after double doses of vaccination.  I would advise you to refrain from attending any such social gatherings, especially when you have to take a flight back to your country soon, after again going through the rigors of producing a latest COVID test result before stepping on that return plane”

Did we attend the scheduled grand wedding of my daughter’s senior during the trip?

It’s anybody’s guess.

-- BERNAMA