The burden of being a good Samaritan
It is not easy to be a good Samaritan, is what COVID teaches you. The burden is heavy, and there is fair chance that you may break your back, neck, lose your sanity and fall depressed.
Two stories run parallel during this tough time. One, of the devils, evils who try to make maximum of others vulnerability and exploit them to the hilt. There is black marketing of the drugs, the beds in the hospitals are being sold at exorbitant prices, in fact surreptitiously auctioned, oxygen cylinders wasted and sold to the highest bidder, ambulances charging a fortune, shortages concocted and falsely created to give desirable hike to service charges, hoardings of necessary items- medicinal and of provisions etc. etc. There is never ending saga of exploitation putting shame to humanity and civilization.
The second story is that of people who are risking their lives to help others. They are running pillar to post to serve the needy. Help is coming from sources who do not know personally those to whom they are catering their services, the persons who are benefiting from their help. Services has a full menu, consisting of all those services which have become a rarity now, and persons are falling dead due to heavy shortage of them. They include right from serving of food, putting to use all available resources to get a ill person bed, oxygen, ambulance and medicines; arrangement of transportation to carry the patients to the hospital and making available possible counseling; providing of hearse vans to carry the bodies of the lost ones and even planning help for the orphans or widows of the dead, who are left unattended. All this plethora of work, services sounds fantastic, very exhilarating and as if God's angels have descended to undo the worst. But is it that easy? Is providing these services as simple as they sound?
Good Samaritans are heavily paying a price for everything. They are losing mental peace, getting frustrated, depressed, losing confidence in themselves and getting sucked into cynicism. Why? This is a million dollar question. And the answer is very simple. Because it is unprecedented time. The resources are exhausted. Every small help requires using and approaching of all known resources, material and mankind, for they are not only scarce but sometimes not available. Even the human resources, on whom, through network, the Samaritans bank on have already spread themselves so thin that they sometimes do not respond. It may take ten to fifteen calls to get one response, and sometimes it turns out to be too little or too late. Even if five lives are saved in a day, one loss siphons off all the inner pleasure achieved and drains out morally, physically and psychologically at the end of the day. So, everyday, despite having served many, the person hits the bed with a sense of failure. It turns out to be a never ending and never winning match.
Unfortunately, I have chosen to be in the team of good Samaritans. The fatigue of loss becomes so heavy that my bout of cough get profound. I owe my recuperation from COVID to my friends who helped me unconditionally. They were there not because who I am, but perhaps for what I am, or should I say some didn't even mind even if it was 'I', for they did not know me.
I remember, one of my friend asking, 'Why are you taking pain when it takes toll on you?'. Another one said, 'It is your choice. Quit if it is so taxing and precarious'. Both are so relevant. I ruminated and found that the habit of giving service is not literally by choice. It is in your DNA. One jumps into the fray not because they tend to earn something out of it, but just because they have to, for they cannot survive without it. Perhaps, there is a breed who have to do it for their own sake. It is for them catharsis. Even little action is required for sanity or the sense of helplessness for doing nothing would kill them. So, it is not by choice but by compulsion. Certainly a selfish motive to survive by being into action. I too must have been born with this DNA. But, in this pandemic time, the sense of letdown is eclipsing the sense of relief. The burden gets piling. Pray that these good Samaritans do not fall prey and become a victim to these relentless pressure, and in turn call for help.
Reflection (6th May)-
I got beautiful feedback from an intellectual, spiritual close friend, though on personal email. I think it reflects the teachings of Geeta. I am trying to put it verbatim
