J&K can see maximum utilization of hospital resources by May end

Predictive models forecast increase in cases, daily death

By Irfan Tramboo 

The predictive models that are operating based on the global COVID-19 data, predicts that the Union Territory of J&K and Ladakh are inching towards the peak of the maximum utilization of hospital resources by the end of May while, as per current projections, the daily deaths are also going to see the peak at the same time.

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Seattle, USA, which is operating a predictive model, states that the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh are going to have an aggregated 6,878 COVID-19 deaths based on the current projection scenario by August 1, above 7000 deaths in case thing take a bad turn and little over 6000 in case the public adheres to COVID SOPs particularly usage of masks.

The peak in daily deaths in J&K and Ladakh is going to be witnessed at the beginning of June, taking into consideration the worse conditions. In terms of the current projection scenario, the model shows, the peak—way lower than what is predicted in June—in the daily death is going to be witnessed by the end of May.

As per the data, the daily deaths in J&K and Ladakh can also see their minimum peak on or around May 8 in case 95% of mask usage is observed in the public.

What is to be noted here is that the model predicts J&K and Ladakh, both the UTs are inching towards the peak where there would be the maximum utilization of the hospital beds, ICUs.

As per the model, while the jump towards the peak has already started to pick, the peak can be witnessed by the end of May.

As per another predictive model, ‘COV-IND-19 Study Group’, J&K is going to add over 23 thousand COVID-19 cases by the end of April with it forecasting the caseload of 177,586 cases on April 30.

Of Saharkhan and my oddly crushing thoughts

Saharkhan was trying hard to wake people up, and there I was, already up, or may be, I didn’t quite sleep and was waiting for him to come by, start banging his drum. I sometimes thought to peep out of my window and tell him that I was up: just to make him happy.

But I never could bring myself up for that. May be, I never wanted him to be happy, or I never wanted anyone to be happy and that too at my sight—too much to ask. I was up, I was up. He was trying hard, so let him be. Why care?

Instead of peeping out of my window and say hello to him, those sounds that reverberated into the air usually brought a smile on my face. May be, he too was happy somewhere. We decided not show our happiness to each other.

Something is not letting me sleep these days. A lot has happened lately—enough to deprive one of sound good night sleep. Some things are happening around, while some happening within; dancing, achingly.

Outside: some were ready to sleep with those who had either killed their brethrens, or had tied them on their vehicles once—not like, those, who were ready to sleep with them, or had already done so several times, were not aware of the fact that they (those they were eager to sleep with) were the culprits—they knew that well, but were at the same time ready to give their fantasies a real shot and sleep with them: sleeplessly.

Picture Credits: Andrew Chui

The incident happened some weeks ago, all set to be forgotten, many might have already, but in my case, it is still there. It keeps on banging disturbingly, it keeps me awake. How could they? But then, why care?

Outside: people were being killed. Now they, as someone recently said, are fed up with the bullets and are now using their vehicles to kill whosoever might come in their way. 

The other day, I saw a picture of a young boy, under the wheels of a vehicle—such vehicles have got another type of license too—apart from the one that is mandatory for the driver to drive the vehicle—this licence is a ‘kill’ license, they all have it. Two at a time.

The long bearded guy was ‘jeeped over’ by a vehicle with two licenses. Helplessly, he was trying to get out the vehicle, but couldn’t. Those expressions on his face are still haunting me, depriving me of some good night sleep. He survived, while the other one didn’t. He too was jeeped over, mind you! Jeeped over by a vehicle with two licenses, mind you!

The Saharkhan must have been aware of both the incidents that I mentioned, but he still got up right on time. He still managed to wake people up—except me.

He tried every night and succeeded in waking some people up, but why have I failed to toss these disturbing incidents out of my mind just to get some sleep until the Saharkhan comes. Why don’t I sleep so that the Saharkhan succeeds in waking me up too, so that one more person is added to the list of those he wakes up successfully?

Instead, I stay quiet. I let him bang around his drum. I don’t peep out of the window. I smile and believe that he too has not been able to sleep. I remain up all night, but he prefers to come out on streets with his drum; waking people up.

Inside: Few abstract things. Let that story be told some other day.

Unlce Jehangir and Kashmir

This is Kashmir, and it is known as heaven on the earth. Very well then! Uncle Jehangir termed Kashmir so, and the world picked it up. Uncle Jehangir came with his wives, with a comfort, I mean, and called Kashmir a heaven. Well, he usually came to Kashmir in summers. And those summers used to be quite joyful and that would have prompted him to term Kashmir as heaven. I don’t think he would have said so, if he would have visited Kashmir in winters, or in the summer of 2016 or the ongoing killing spree of winter, 2017, for that matter.  

These winters, as we listen to our grandparents, are nothing in comparison to the winters of their time, not to speak of winters during the times of Uncle Jehangir. Those would have been harsher. No one dared to visit Kashmir, then.

Well, it is heaven, but not in winters. Shehanshah Jehangir should be made to roam around streets. No, not on his horse, but on foot. Then, I’d like to watch him naming Kashmir as the heaven.

He wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have dared to call it Firdous, as they say. He would have packed his bags, assembled his numerous wives, and would have been seen marching towards Delhi. Frozen roads and icy winds would have made him realise that indeed: Hunooz Delhi Door Ast (Delhi is still far away)

His wives would have cursed him. Numerous wives (numerous aunties), numerous curses. There would have been no room to think that “This place is a heaven.”  He would have been looking to get out of this place, as soon as possible.

This is a place where you need electricity for almost everything. If there is no electricity and that too during winters, there is only 1% chance of taking even a shower and cleaning yourself up. I am yet to see any Kalle Kharaab individual, who can take a shower in the total absence of electricity.  Shehanshah Jehangir should have been brought to Kashmir in 2017, without servants, but with his numerous wives and without electricity. I’d like to see this word heaven coming out of his mouth, then. I am sure that this word would have preferred to stay indoors.

Summers used to be very joyful until 2008. This joy and merriment is now, lost in our summers. Kashmir isn’t heaven during summers, too. Had there been a Shahanshah Jehangir now, he would have called Kashmir a beautiful slaughter house. Ah! I feel bad for Uncle Jehangir, he has lost every chance to call Kashmir a heaven, even in summers! He has got nothing to give to the world now.

Summers kill and winters freeze those dead bodies. Summers spill blood and winters turn it into ice. Summers boil the blood up, and the winters boil it down. Summers bring about passion and revolution, and the winters make us crave for even a shower. Summers fill this land with slogans, and the winters choke them down (mobile phones, too needs electricity; so no sloganeering!)  Summers bring about tension and fear, and the winters, too come with fear and tension (of cold water in the morning, and ‘battery about to die’ message with a cry of my mobile phone.) Summer comes with a dream of freedom. I discuss it in the morning: “I had dream where in I saw: people from that side of tunnel were applying for visa, to visit Kashmir.”  And winters, too do come with a dream of: electricity, a warm tub of water in the morning and a mobile phone with a charge of 99% left to use. A dream: in summers and in winters too.

I am a Kashmiri with a diverse set of thoughts. I am passionate about everything. I aim high during summers and aim equally high during the winters. That’s me! Collars up! I desert everything during summers, I aim high. Then, I beg, I still aim high.

Uncle Jehangir, Kashmir used to be heaven during those days, and not today. Don’t try to visit Kashmir alone, or with your numerous wives. You may die of tear gas. Your wives may lose their eye sight, pellets may welcome them! Aren’t they more into sightseeing? Don’t let them visit downtown please! Pellets shower there frequently. Pepper gas may choke them! Beware, uncle Jehangir, beware!

So don’t visit us, till you too, will have to apply for a visa to visit Kashmir. You may call it heaven then, but now there is no room for that.

First '8' Seats Reserved

“First 8 seats are reserved for ladies” The sticker bearing this message on the red background, can be seen almost in all the mini buses which are running on various routes in Srinagar city. And we can see how that message is ignored most of the times. We can say that that sticker is just like a common advertisement we find in those buses. One can see that those 8 seats which are reserved for the ladies remain occupied most of the times and the female commuters are forced to travel in an awkward position. The female commuters while travelling have to face difficulties of various forms and a person who on daily basis travels in such buses can easily understand what forms of difficulties I am talking about.

We do have our female college and school students, employees and others travelling in buses and the incidents of eve teasing in such buses have increased drastically. Now, the female folk are not even feeling secure while travelling in these mini buses. I have seen many, college and school female students preferring to reach their respective institution either by asking their parents to drop them there or by travelling that distance by foot, they usually avoid to board a bus. And those who are unable to do so are bound to board the bus and face the consequences.

Recently when I was travelling on one such route in a mini bus, to which we usually refer to as ‘TATA GAED’ , what I saw was that three guys in their mid twenties cornered a lady of almost same age group and in no time the body language of those guys went from indecency to worst, and unfortunately no one really noticed the scene. I caught them, but I couldn’t protest, keeping in view the state of my body, I was not in the state of resisting, they were all giants and they could have thrown me out of that bus in no time. I will not tell you that I just got up; slapped them and dragged them out of the bus, no, that will be an exaggeration on my part. I just looked at them with disgust and thought that it might work.  Luckily that lady somehow managed to grab a nearby vacant seat and got rid of those beasts on wheels.

Many such incidents have happened and are happening and this issue is not getting any attention at all. There is an urgency to address this issue which is alarming in nature. Today it was the sister or wife of Mr. ‘A’ who faced this, tomorrow it can be your sister, your wife or mine, for that matter.

As discussed, officially there are 8 seats which are reserved for ladies in every minibus running on the city roads. Now let us ask a simple question to ourselves that is, are these 8 seats sufficient to be reserved? Can’t we have more than eight ladies travelling in the bus? What about them? Let us say that those reserved seats have been occupied by ladies, what about those who standing right there in jumble? Can’t they fall into the hands of such human beasts which have lost the ability to distinguish between the things around them?

The only solution which at this point of time is coming into mind is that of running a separate bus service for the ladies on all the major city routes initially and with the advent of time this chain of separate bus service for ladies can be extended to the various other routes of the valley.

If normally there are 10 buses playing on a particular route, we can have additional 5 buses meant for the ladies only. This concept if implemented can ease up the travel for ladies who travel on daily basis on the major routes of Srinagar city.

If seen carefully, somewhere deep down into the hearts of people they want something new which will ease up their routinely travel. This step can be a new and innovative step in this direction. For its implementation we should not wait for the government to analyze the issue and form a committee to study the issue, then after a decade they will come up with a report and again after a year they will forward some typical recommendation. No, in this way it will take a lifetime to address this alarming issue. We have the solution and its implementation should not take much time. For this, the local transport companies, which are right now in the business, should take up the job and offer such type of bus service in the city in its initial stage, which will be exclusive for ladies.

I am hopeful that the response to this exclusive service will be huge and these transport companies (if they will take up the job) will have no hesitation in expanding this ‘Female Exclusive Bus Service’ to other parts of the valley.

And They Play With Our Lives!

Is there anyone who will heed and enact??

Recently some couple of weeks before, when there was some fault with the electricity setup in the valley and also in some states of India resulting in the miseries all around and perhaps my family was the only family which suffered really a lot. With all this happening all around me and my uncle went to our city hospital (SMHS) to get our oxygen cylinders refilled or exchanged with other filled (with oxygen) cylinders, as my grandfather is an asthmatic patient so he needs the constant external oxygen supply provided by these O₂ (oxygen ) cylinders throughout the day. In other words we can say that he is alive because of this external O₂ provided to him acting as the source of life for him.

Usually we get our oxygen cylinders filled from the a private supplier in the city outskirts whenever needed, but on that unfortunate day when we reached there and asked them (private supplier) to get our cylinders refilled or replaced he straight away declined citing the reason that there was no electricity in the area and we couldn’t run our processing plant over here so we can’t met your requirements. As there was the acute shortage of O₂ back home and we must have to make some quick arrangements as it was the matter of life and death for my grandfather and the situation was same with the supplier so ultimately we decided to head towards the city hospital (SMHS) where we could get one cylinder possibly filled so as to manage the crisis. After reaching there we met a man there who was on duty and asked him that can we get an oxygen cylinder showing him all the prescription and all that on which it was written that the patient needs oxygen supply 24×7. But he declined citing the reason that we cannot supply oxygen cylinders to the outsiders, we pleaded him that there is the urgent need as our patient cannot live without it. We did all what we could do that time but there was no impact of all this on him visibly. But after sometime he agreed as we didn’t left the place as it was the lone source of that what we needed. He agreed to provide us with one cylinder saying that “…I am providing this on humanitarian grounds otherwise it is not permitted at all….” Indeed we should have thanked him and that’s what we did and left.

We took the life box (Oxygen cylinder) and headed towards home where my grandfather was waiting for us that they will bring the cylinders refilled and I may get some relief, unaware of the situation. As soon as we reached home we tied up the cylinder and tried to supply the available O₂. But when we tried to release the content, what we found that the oxygen cylinder which we brought from SMHS hospital after lots of pleading and all that was empty, rubbing salt to the injuries. My eyes remained wide open; our entire family was in shock. The only question which was perhaps in the minds of my family members was that “What is going to happen now? And what the hell is this?” Fortunately my another uncle was also on the hunt to get an oxygen cylinder from anywhere. As we all were sort of paralyzed, in the mean time my uncle opened the main gate with a filled oxygen cylinder in his hands, he came running all along. Alhamdulillah he has managed that from somewhere, I actually don’t know and I didn’t ask him where from you had this one. The reason was that I was in the deep shock that if he (uncle) would not have managed to get one filled cylinder on time what could have happened? My grandfather could have died and that too due to the unavailability of oxygen and that could have been a strange thing.

The reason which compelled me to narrate that entire incident was to ask that who have given them the right to play with our lives. It was the matter of life and death for an aged person, how could they be so callous and so careless?? Obviously the answer is needed that how they can do this? And who is actually responsible for this? This is the one incident which I have narrated, there could be many other incidents happening everyday in these hospitals which usually get unnoticed…. 

Why Double Standards??

If I am not erroneous aren’t the laws identic for everyone?

In an abstract democratic system every citizen has been given some civic rights, be it the Right to vote, Right to propagation & practice of religion, Right to expression of thoughts, Right to speech and many other basic rights. Every democratic country in this world is bound to dispense these foundational rights to the citizens of their countries; moreover a citizen has a indubitable right to tug for acquiring these basic rights and that will be a justified fight and no one can traverse or annihilate this fight. These basic rights we can say are the preeminent building blocks of any democratic state and the society/state lacking them is not worth to be called as democratic society/state at all.

In the present times if we analyze that currently only those societies of the world are robust on ground that are in forefront in providing these basic rights to their citizens and those who are indisposed in this sphere and are depriving their citizens of these rights surely face the brute civil rebellion in most of the cases during the passage of time, the recent Arab spring is a good paradigm in front of us in which people came out on streets demanding their basal rights which were forcibly snapped from them by the rulers (dictators) of the times. The blazes of this rebellion still continues in the some countries in the Middle East and perhaps it will continue till the justice is dispensed to them and the dictators are thrown out.

Back home taking the example of J&K state here we are also enjoying the basic rights but only some conditions apply while you want to demand your right, if I am not wrong…!  Just taking the example of media working  in Kashmir, at the most of the times we see the journalists while covering any sort of protests (political or apolitical) especially in the valley face the thwart of state forces and hence put a big question mark on the independence of media as procreated by the state. As in any democratic state the independence of media (Azaadi-e-Sahafat) is the main building block for its existence and here in Kashmir its existence is thus in peril. Irony is that we oft came to know that the security personals have barred the journalists from performing their professional duties and most of the times lambaste them harshly. And unfortunately face no action from the concerned authorities. This is the situation only in the valley; does rest of the states of India affront this? No. why only we? Why these dual standards? Recently on Friday 17-08-2012   in Jaipur a police personal was suspended by the authorities (News item carried in “Times of India” Saturday 18-08-2012) and do you know the antecedent? The reason was that the cop has beaten a journo while he was covering a protest rally of the university students. Ok fine this is what a democratic system demands from you, proper action and timely justice. What this cop has done was totally undemocratic and unethical where the proper action against the cop was necessary, but what happens to this democratic system when it comes to dispense justice and act timely here in Kashmir? Why it dwindle to dispense the justice?  As I already said that these foundational rights are the building blocks for the existence of any democratic state and the dearth of anyone among these can make this building of democracy to crumple anytime. That fold up can be in the form of rebellion against the rulers.

Many such cases are there in which guilty has not been chastised and thus the justice was not delivered. We heed exceptionally about the enquiries but on ground these enquiries bear no fruits and thus delaying the justice and it has been decorously said that “Justice delayed is Justice denied”. This saying only suits for Kashmir as in the rest of India a desirable action was being taken against the guilty and the justice was being dispensed to some extend but why not in Kashmir?  Why are we being victimized? Why these dual standards?

Due to all this, there happens to have amplify a sensibility of trust defalcation in hearts and the minds of common Kashmir masses. People are averse when it comes to develop a contingence with the functioning of democratic system & that’s the natural reaction. As said “to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”, same is the situation rampant in the valley. In action the democratic system has failed to deliver and in the reaction people have fed up and perhaps have no farther expectations from the system. This reaction can also opt for a radical reaction as that of the Middle East, where people extirpated the system which failed to deliver amply.

So to prevent this building of democratic system from getting collapse there is a clamant need to dispense the apt justice from every front of the state machinery to people living in the system and let the people of the system exercise their basic fundamental rights. No one (any element of the system) should be allowed to prevent the citizens from demanding their basic rights and nobody should be permitted to quench the voices in any form which demand their rights in a proper civilized way.

These points which I have insinuated are veritably momentous for an ideal democratic system and if the system has to thrive it has to act upon these points made above and most significant thing is that there should be nothing like “Double Standards” in any democratic system as its mien make this system delicate and obnoxious to rebellions, so this menace has to end if there is any value for the democratic system in India or elsewhere in the world, because in my opinion this menace of  “Double Standards” make a flourished system feeble and in longer time it transmogrify that effectual delivering system into an ineffectual one and hence the environment turns to be ‘hostilo’ & susceptible to ‘rebellion’ and thus the real meaning of the democratic system is lost in the air…..