City girl faces island struggles
Hyderabad after six months, Meghana shared her lockdown days on the island, the hard times during the unplanned extended stay, eating one meal a day, interacting with the island tribes people, learning their fears about and understanding of the virus.
A consultant architect by profession, with adventure as a passion, she was supposed to return on March 21 but flights were cancelled and soon the nationwide lockdown followed.
Neil island is 37 km from Port Blair with a population of about 2,500 people. Most supplies to the Andaman islands come from outside. The lockdown caused a scarcity of essential commodities. No one was aware of the situation and all the people were anxious, talking only about the virus everywhere.
“For the initial two weeks, we survived on one meal a day, lockdown was very strict. People lacked sanitisers and masks. As the supply was struck, onions were sold at 300 per kg, same other prices of essentials shot up,” said Meghana.
As there was relaxation in the lockdown, Meghana worked in the fields and then along with the locals, she went to hunt for fish for survival, an adventure she had never imagined.
On June 10, Meghana moved to Port Blair, where every day she used to spend her time with the Jarawa and Nicobarese tribes. She discovered there was a great need of medical aid; the island has only one hospital.
A girl from one of the tribes who was a medical practitioner came on vacation and got stuck in the lockdown. She was helping them with the medical assistance. “The tribes are disciplined. Though there is shortage of masks, they covered their faces with the cloth and made sure the social distancing was maintained,” said Meghana.
Summer is a peak season for tourism on the islands. The inhabitants lost most of the earnings due to the lockdown. “It was a big blow to them. They earn for the whole year in the season. Many farmers in the lockdown could not sell their harvest which was thrown away as there was no transport,” said a deeply affected Meghana.
The first case of Coronavirus was found in the island is on March 26 when a man returned from Kolkata and was identified as positive. But the cases have increased rapidly in recent times. According to Meghana, initially, during the lockdown, anyone reaching the island was supposed go through the institutional quarantine but as the lockdown was eased, this was stopped. “This might have triggered more cases in the island,” said Meghana.