Love is a mystery. Love is unitive. Love is how we connect as human beings with one another and with the whole universe together. Love is how we learn, how we become better, and make the world a better place to live, for us and others. Love needs freedom to breathe, equality to thrive, and openness to flow and grow. Love is personal, political, sexual, philosophical, social, historical, metaphysical, transcendental, et al. Sadly, we have only one word to describe an emotion so complex. The ancient Greeks had six different words, but even that’s not enough. 2021 taught me new ways to describe the complexity of love and its various hues. Love lost on many counts, but like a phoenix, it miraculously sprang on a few occasions. My vocabulary of LOVE was defined and redefined by people who touched my life one way or another this year.

Shillpi a singh

LOVE IS HOPE: Suman Rajat

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”  

Desmond tutu

Do you know what did the COVID-19 virus tell Delhi-based Suman Rajat? “I came, I saw, but I couldn’t conquer you.” Suman fought tooth and nail for two and a half months in the hospital and still suffers from symptoms of long COVID, but she’s one of the lucky few who managed to walk out of the hospital after a long and arduous fight with the virus.
“It’s been seven months now, but my lungs are still reeling under the impact of the virus. HRCT score is worrisome. The virus has impacted my neurological health as well, the doctors say. But then the worst is behind me is what I feel right now as I look back at the life-altering experience of 2021,” says the teacher, who gives a lesson in resilience to one and all with her indomitable spirit.
As an external examiner for the board exams, she was on duty in the government school when the COVID symptoms knocked her down. “It was on April 12, and I suddenly started feeling sick while checking the papers. I got myself tested once. It was negative. Then I went for a repeat test. It was positive, and I couldn’t take any chance. I was wheeled in the hospital after my oxygen saturation started plummeting on April 15. My comorbidities made it imperative to put me under intensive care,” she recounts. The high blood pressure and diabetes added to her COVID woes. While in hospital, on April 26, 2021, her SPO2 sank to as low as 37%, and it got scarier with every passing day. She was administered two units of plasma and six doses of Remdesivir. The para monitor sitting atop the slab next to her bed kept beeping 24×7. After all, it had the onerous responsibility to count her heartbeat and pulse rate. In a way, it gave a real-time account of how the oxygen-supported respiratory mechanism was helping her breathe, and with great difficulty.

“It could have either gotten better or worse from that moment. I was comfortably numb by then. By then, none of the people around me in that intensive care ward had survived the virus, except one. They were falling like flies. To see death all around shattered me to the core, but I knew it was about either fight or fright. I didn’t want to give the option of flight to myself,” she reminisces.
Her husband Manoj, too, had contracted COVID by then. He came to the hospital on the night when her saturation levels and pulse rate were playing truant and stayed back to look after her. He, along with the doctors, nurses, support staff, saw a miracle unfold as she started showing slow signs of improvement, and in May, she was sent away to the general ward. From being on full oxygen support, she came to 4l/minute, and her saturation hovered around 88-92%. She remained on oxygen support until she was discharged from the hospital on June 30, 2021. She survived the deadly attack of the virus by clinging on to hope with all her might and putting up an intense fight.
“ACP of Narela, Dr Nirav Patel ji and Dr Yashpal ji stayed were in constant touch with the attending doctors at the hospital – Satyawadi Raja Harishchandra Hospital – and provided continuous help with the treatment. During this crisis, Balbir Singh, Ranjana ji, Balbir Antil ji and Anita Antil ji gave moral support and motivational guidance, and I thank all of them. Harish and Manjit Bhai helped me with the plasma donation, and that’s what kept me going. My family stood like a rock during this crisis and helped me beat this virus. I will be forever indebted to them,” she says.

• Notes of celebration
• The Degree Dream
• Taking a Macro View of the Micro Schools
• Dhoti Daredevils
• In my father’s tongue

जिसके होने से मैं खुद को मुकम्मल मानती हूं, मैं खुदा से पहले मेरे परिवार को जानती हूँ। जब हमारी जिंदगी में कोई परेशानी आती है, तो उस परेशानी से लड़ने के लिए सबसे पहले जो साथ में खड़े होते हैं वह होते हैं परिवार के लोग और जब हम उस परेशानी से बाहर आते हैं तो हम सबको थैंक्स बोलते हैं, पर उन्हें थैंक्स बोलना भूल जाते हैं जो हमारे दिल के सबसे करीब होते हैं । लेकिन मुझे लगता है कि मेरी लिस्ट लम्बी है ।थैंक्स के पहले हकदार हैं मेरे पति मनोज जिन्होंने अपनी सेहत की चिंता ना करते हुए मेरी दिन रात सेवा की।मेरे माँ-बाप, भाई जिन्होंने मुझे बचाने के लिए रातों की नींद को खो दिया और भरसक प्रयास करते रहे कि मुझे हर सुविधा मिल जाए जिससे मैं अपने घर सही सलामत आ जाऊं।भाभी, जिन्होंने खाने-पीने का इंतज़ाम किया, पसंद के साथ-साथ सेहत का ध्यान रखा, उन्हें प्यार और आभार । मेरी बहनें, जीजा जी, मामा जी, बच्चे, कुल मिलाकर सभी लोग जिन्होंने मुझे इस बीमारी से लड़ने की हिम्मत दी उन सभी को साधुवाद।सबके हाथ प्रार्थना से जुड़े होते थे और वह सब निरंतर इस प्रयास में व्यस्त थे। ईश्वर ने उनकी प्रार्थना सुन ली। बस एक आस जुड़ी थी – वे सब चाहते थे कि एक सकारात्मक परिणाम आ जाए । जानते हैं उनके लिए धन्यवाद क्यों नहीं निकलता? क्योंकि उनके लिए शब्द नहीं मिलते । एक धन्यवाद कहना ही काफी नहीं होता । उनका प्यार अमूल्य है । उनके आगे हर चीज नतमस्तक है। धन्यवाद !

Suman rajat

She’s our fighter.
She’s our winner.
She’s our hope.
She’s one among the countable few happy stories from 2021.