Engineer: ‘Life there is so hard’
Worries rise about family in India
Angela Oommen and her family were looking forward to welcoming her parents for their annual summer visit to the U.S.
Oommen said her mother and father in the past regularly made the trek from the family’s native India to Oklahoma City, but those plans abruptly changed a few weeks ago.
Oommen, a metro-area engineer, was looking up flights and saw that several she had hoped to book for her parents had been canceled.
In the span of a few weeks in April, a full-blown COVID-19 crisis emerged in India. Coronavirus cases and deaths
spiked precipitously there, setting new global records for the most daily infections in a single country. On the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Tuesday the U.S. began restricting travel from India.
Oommen said the ruined travel plans were disappointing but, more importantly, the spiraling health situation in India has been alarming for her and her family members who live there. Her brother survived COVID-19 and continues to recover, but she’s still concerned about him and her parents.
“I think as life is getting back to normal over here, we were hoping that things would get better there but they did not, so we’re at limbo at this point,” Oommen said.
“For me, it’s so hard because life here is so normal and life there is so hard.”
Simran Kaur Sethi, a Ph.D. student at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, and Cutie Abraham of Oklahoma City, shared similar thoughts.
“So far my family is OK, but community spread is pretty high,” Abraham said. “It sounded like things were really turning the corner but they weren’t.”
‘It spreads like wildfire’
Oommen, a member of the India Association of Oklahoma’s executive committee, said her parents and brother live in Kerala, a state in the southwest part of India. She said Kerala is less crowded than Bombay or Delhi but the population density is still pretty high.
She said Kerala has already been on lockdown for one week as health officials try to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Her brother had enough funds to pay for a medical professional to monitor him every day as he battled COVID-19 symptoms. She said her brother could afford the cost of the video consultations, about $130 for 14 days of care. The engineer said this is a large amount of money in India and such care is only affordable for the middle class and wealthier people.
“But there’s a big population of poor in India,” who can’t pay for such treatment, she said.
Kerala has had enough oxygen to send supplies to other states, particularly rural clinics where it is needed for poor individuals.
“People are just dying because there are no oxygen tanks. It’s like a war zone,” she said.
Oommen said she and her husband Cherian Karunapuzha, M.D., and their children were looking forward to spending some time with her parents but the family time will have to wait.
“I was looking for tickets for my parents just three weeks back ... but I think this is what COVID does — when it spreads, it spreads like wildfire,” she said.
Sethi, in Norman, agreed with Oommen’s assessment of the alarming spread of the virus.
She said she thought leaders in India could be doing more to contain the spread. Officials allowed Kumdh Mela religious gatherings which drew large crowds of Hindus and people of other faiths together.
“That’s just complacency from the government. There are cricket matches happening with people in stadiums. All these things definitely had a hand in what is happening,” she said.
Because of the crisis, Sethi said her mother’s plan to visit Norman on Wednesday were canceled. Sethi said she learned about America’s travel restrictions on Sunday and saw that some people who met certain exception requirements could still travel from India to the U.S.
Her mom didn’t meet those requirements so her visit was postponed. Sethi, who is president of the India Student Association at OU, had planned to return to India in summer 2020 but couldn’t because of the pandemic.
She said several OU students who are part of her student group have also felt the effects of the COVID crisis in their native country and around the world since the pandemic took hold in March 2020.
“It’s been not so great since COVID really hit,” she said. “A lot of students couldn’t make it here because of the COVID restrictions, so a lot of them took online classes.”
The student leader said she plans to stay put for now and she hopes to see her family soon.
“With the situation back home so scary right now, I’m just planning to stay here until India gets a little better.”
Meanwhile, Abraham, like Oommen, comes from Kerala, India. She said she booked a flight to return home in March 2020 and then COVID-19 struck.
“It’s been close to two years since I’ve seen my parents,” she said.
Abraham said she takes comfort in knowing that her parents and other family members are OK.
People rally to help
Sethi said the India Student Association at OU recently turned one of their popular annual events at the university into a fundraiser for the India COVID-19 crisis.
She said proceeds from the group’s “Desi Mela” event held on the South Oval went to a fundraiser launched by an actor from India. Actor Priyanka Chopra Jonas and her husband Nick Jonas set up a fundraiser with GiveIndia to help fund relief in India.
Oommen said she has been encouraged by the many ways that people in India and around the globe have rallied to help those battling COVID-19 in her native country.
“Everyone is trying their best to help. There are some temples, churches and gurdwaras in India, practically all of them, that have opened their doors and they are giving out food and doing other things,” she said. “As a community, I can see everyone is working hard there. It’s a great thing to see.”
She said she was also heartened to see the U.S. send oxygen tanks and other countries also “trying to help a country in need.”