When po­lice of­fi­cer Surinder­jit Kaur lost her hus­band, Cha­ran­jit Singh, to Covid-19 in Delhi, it is oblig­a­tory upon each one of us to feel a deep sense of loss. There is no other way to save our in­ner hu­man­ity. She is a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer, an as­sis­tant com­mis­sioner of the Delhi po­lice, who had risen through the ranks. He was a busi­ness­man. Their young son is set­tled in Canada. By all ac­counts, this was a fam­ily which rep­re­sented the In­dian mid­dle-class dream. World Sikh News brings this in­cred­i­ble story from the pen of the ace jour­nal­ist with the hu­mane touch -SP Singh.

EACH ONE HAS A STORY OF LIFE  -the beg­gar you see every­day at the street cor­ner, the man helm­ing your gro­cery shop, the cob­bler you pass by near your of­fice, the paan­wal­lah, the at­ten­dant in your car park, the boss you hate, the col­league you ad­mire, the can­teen guy, the juice seller out­side. They are all peo­ple, and all peo­ple have sto­ries. The ones you lis­ten to care­fully touch you, the ones on which Bol­ly­wood makes movies live with you longer. The ones you do not get to know also make up the world, maybe some­one else’s world. Hu­man be­ings are made of sto­ries.

But there are more lay­ers to the story of this fam­ily, far wider and deeper than just a fam­ily los­ing a loved one to a deadly virus. Thou­sands are suf­fer­ing that fate. Thou­sands more will. And we need to take each death per­son­ally. Very very per­son­ally. No one’s life is less pre­cious.

These sto­ries are dy­ing. All these peo­ple made our world, and that world is dy­ing. And some­times, it is by dy­ing that a story comes alive for us. A story that was al­ways there. A story that we had not heard. A story that had so many lay­ers. A story that came to life for us only and only when a man died.

Ask a young child to draw a pic­ture of a po­lice of­fi­cer and nine times out of 10, the kid will draw the pic­ture of a male of­fi­cer. The nor­ma­tive im­age of­ten ex­poses our hid­den or not-so-hid­den bi­ases. If the im­age of a fam­ily dur­ing Covid-19 times that comes to our mind shows a po­lice of­fi­cer bravely ven­tur­ing out every day be­cause duty calls, and shows a spouse who stays be­hind and takes care of the house, then you can bet that it is the male head of fam­ily who goes out and the woman who stays be­hind.

Also, the per­ma­nent con­nec­tion be­tween the man and the des­ig­na­tion of be­ing the head of the fam­ily un­der­lines yet an­other in­grained prej­u­dice of our times, corona or no corona.

That’s why the story of ACP Surinder­jit Kaur is more ed­uca­tive for us, for our chil­dren, and for our times. She’s dev­as­tated, full of re­gret and blam­ing her­self. Surinder­jit lost the love of her life, the fa­ther of her child, the only man she would come back to af­ter days good, bad and ugly in her job.

She was out be­cause she was an of­fi­cer in uni­form on duty. Cha­ran­jit was home be­cause he was a car­ing spouse and was tak­ing care, was not ven­tur­ing out be­cause death lurked out­side. Death still knocked and came in­side.

And Surinder­jit Kaur thinks she was the one who brought death home.

What do you say to her? What do you tell her son? What do you tell her fam­ily?

***

“My hus­band did­n’t step out of the house when the lock­down started, but I went out daily be­cause of my job…I will never be able to for­give my­self,” Surinder­jit said on Tues­day, June 16.

Cha­ran­jit Singh was 54. He passed away on Mon­day, fight­ing Covid at a Delhi hos­pi­tal.

“My hus­band did­n’t step out of the house when the lock­down started, but I went out daily be­cause of my job…I will never be able to for­give my­self,” Surinder­jit said on Tues­day, June 16.

Surinder­jit joined the Delhi po­lice as a young of­fi­cer. She was a sta­tion house of­fi­cer, dash­ing in her uni­form, adamant on prov­ing her­self, of­ten spend­ing 24 hours on the road, still more chalk­ing up 36-hour shifts.

At home, her hus­band, a busi­ness­man, in­vari­ably dou­bled up as a mother to their lit­tle kid. He would look af­ter the house­hold. Surinder­jit would of­ten miss fam­ily func­tions and the hus­band would mark his pres­ence to make up for her ab­sence.

Their life seemed good to those out­side be­cause it was a beau­ti­ful story of a young cou­ple bring­ing up a child in a home that has its rou­tine every­day prob­lems, is­sues, love, dreams, and con­ver­sa­tions about a rosy fu­ture and, very of­ten, about the kid’s favourite ice cream.

It takes years for a fam­ily to build a life; to progress inch by inch, to make ca­reer moves step by step, to see a son grow­ing, grad­u­ate high school, go for higher stud­ies, and fi­nally make a move to Canada.

Surinder­jit is 57, due to re­tire in a cou­ple of years. For long hours into the night, the hus­band and wife must have been talk­ing about their fu­ture. They had planned to join their son in Canada and even had a date in mind — 2023. Imag­ine that just a cou­ple of years be­fore her re­tire­ment, and with pos­si­ble im­mi­gra­tion plans, how de­tailed and how long those con­ver­sa­tions must have been in that house in La­j­pat Na­gar.

And then, the novel coro­n­avirus ex­ploded on the scene.

Every Covid death that we read about has all these sto­ries be­hind it. And re­mem­ber, we’re not read­ing about every Covid death; they’re not even pub­lish­ing every Covid death. In­stead, we read a num­ber, a sta­tis­tic, every day, which does­n’t de­stroy us deep in­side. It does­n’t make our heart go thud. Mean­while, we go about our lives, wash­ing hands, sani­tis­ing pack­ets, dis­in­fect­ing sur­faces.

All that Surinder­jit needed to say was that her hus­band was cough­ing a lit­tle bit, and she would have been told to stay home. All that she needed to say was that she was run­ning a slight fever and no one would have in­sisted that a 57-year-old of­fi­cer must re­port for duty.

But that is not the stuff Surinder­jit Kaur is made of. She had been a front-rank fighter in the streets for years, and she was not go­ing to take a step back and hide be­hind a door lest Covid finds her.

A month ago, Covid found Surinder­jit. She tested pos­i­tive, and her hus­band fol­lowed suit. Within hours, her 80-year-old fa­ther also tested pos­i­tive for the virus.

***

Now, please pause here. Think of the con­ver­sa­tions each of them must have had while at hos­pi­tal — of course, with one’s in­ner self only. It was­n’t pos­si­ble to have a con­ver­sa­tion with one’s spouse, with one’s son, with one’s par­ents. What must those con­ver­sa­tions would have con­tained? How many times would the mor­tal fear of death pulled down morale? How many times must one have pic­tured a loved one dy­ing?

All that Surinder­jit needed to say was that her hus­band was cough­ing a lit­tle bit, and she would have been told to stay home. All that she needed to say was that she was run­ning a slight fever and no one would have in­sisted that a 57-year-old of­fi­cer must re­port for duty.
But that is not the stuff Surinder­jit Kaur is made of. She had been a front-rank fighter in the streets for years, and she was not go­ing to take a step back and hide be­hind a door lest Covid finds her.

Every Covid death that we read about has all these sto­ries be­hind it. And re­mem­ber, we’re not read­ing about every Covid death; they’re not even pub­lish­ing every Covid death. In­stead, we read a num­ber, a sta­tis­tic, every day, which does­n’t de­stroy us deep in­side. It does­n’t make our heart go thud. Mean­while, we go about our lives, wash­ing hands, sani­tis­ing pack­ets, dis­in­fect­ing sur­faces.

In In­draprastha Apollo hos­pi­tal, both hus­band and wife spent some time in sep­a­rate wards. His oxy­gen lev­els plunged. First, they saw each other on video, un­til that was no longer pos­si­ble. He said he would send What­sApp mes­sages, in­stead. Soon these mes­sages started com­ing. De­tails of bank ac­counts, de­tails of de­posits, a lot of fi­nan­cial stuff. This was real.

Why, she asked. Why are you send­ing me these de­tails?

“Be­cause you would need them,” he said.

This is death talk be­tween peo­ple who loved each other all their lives, saw each other every morn­ing and every evening, year af­ter year, decade af­ter decade. And they could not see each other; time was run­ning out. He could not af­ford to write long mes­sages de­tail­ing how much he loved her; how when he was young, he was so taken in by his dash­ing wife in a uni­form; how when their son was study­ing at school and they would play good cop, bad cop, he would of­ten want to be the bad cop so his wife could re­main the good cop that the son could con­fide in.

These, and a mil­lion other tales from in­nu­mer­able years.

But Cha­ran­jit’s words and mes­sages were dic­tated by oxy­gen lev­els, re­duced to dry texts on data, money and prop­erty, not love and dreams and ice cream in Canada. The hos­pi­tal’s ster­ile at­mos­phere, and the stench of sick­ness and death hang­ing in the air al­lowed lim­ited con­ver­sa­tion via phones.

On May 26, Surinder­jit came home. She had re­cov­ered. Cha­ran­jit did not. He never did.

***

There are many de­tails we’re skip­ping: video calls, beeps from ven­ti­la­tors, the ghostly shad­ows of doc­tors and nurses in PPE kits, Surinder­jit’s vis­its to tem­ples and mosques and churches and gur­d­waras, pray­ing that her hus­band would come home. Her re­grets that though he’d stayed home, he had not been safe, since she had­n’t cho­sen to stay home, too.

In­stead, she had cho­sen to be a war­rior. Be­cause some­one needs to pa­trol the streets, some­one needs to keep things un­der con­trol, some­one needs to keep the coun­try run­ning, some­one needs to tell peo­ple to stay in­doors.

This video pro­vides a peep into the re­mark­able per­sona of
po­lice of­fi­cer ACP Surinder­jit Kaur

That some­one has to be out­doors.

When In­dia hosted the 2015 “Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Con­clave” in Ranchi, or­gan­ised by the US con­sulate, Cal­cutta, and Delhi-based NGO Shakti Vahini, Surinder­jit Kaur was one of the four Su­per Cops se­lected from all over In­dia for lead­ing the fight against this mod­ern-day men­ace.

Surinder­jit Kaur moved from Pun­jab to Delhi as a child, was brought up in a con­ser­v­a­tive at­mos­phere where girls are dis­cour­aged from go­ing for higher stud­ies. She could not go to col­lege, felt trapped, but doggedly pur­sued her ed­u­ca­tion through dis­tant learn­ing pro­grammes. A Mas­ter’s in Hindi and a diploma in of­fice man­age­ment un­der her belt, this daugh­ter of a con­sta­ble nursed a dream. Her dad wanted her to learn stenog­ra­phy and find em­ploy­ment in some of­fice; she wanted to be on the road, set­ting wrongs right.

And one day, she achieved her dream: she donned the uni­form of a sub-in­spec­tor and even­tu­ally be­came to be known as one of the tough­est, helm­ing Del­hi’s no­to­ri­ous Kamla Na­gar Mar­ket po­lice sta­tion. Goons in that area did not know how to deal with a woman of­fi­cer who’s tough and yet hu­mane.

She made deal­ing with hu­man traf­fick­ing a tryst, and was in­stru­men­tal in the res­cue of 15 girls on her very first as­sign­ment. “I could­n’t take it. I started vom­it­ing. I re­alised that this was some­thing I was go­ing to go af­ter and mon­i­tor the way these cases were be­ing reg­is­tered and in­ves­ti­gated,” she told The Tele­graph.

But she was a mother, too, and knew what young res­cued girls needed. She took in­ter­est in their lives, helped marry off some of them, kept track of oth­ers.

It is such an of­fi­cer who has lost her love on duty. How many times me­dia cov­er­age of deaths due to Covid-19 brings home to us the per­son be­hind the name, the hu­man be­ing be­hind that num­ber? Read­ing about how many died on a day and how many were found pos­i­tive is mak­ing us im­mune, de­sen­si­tised, de­hu­man­ised to the pain, the suf­fer­ing, the agony of oth­ers.

It is such an of­fi­cer who has lost her love on duty. How many times me­dia cov­er­age of deaths due to Covid-19 brings home to us the per­son be­hind the name, the hu­man be­ing be­hind that num­ber? Read­ing about how many died on a day and how many were found pos­i­tive is mak­ing us im­mune, de­sen­si­tised, de­hu­man­ised to the pain, the suf­fer­ing, the agony of oth­ers.

That’s why we need to delve deeper into the pain of oth­ers to save our souls.

On Tues­day, June 16, their son watched his fa­ther’s last jour­ney through a video link, from the am­bu­lance right till the en­trance to the cre­ma­to­rium. In nor­mal times, they would have al­lowed you a few more steps in­side, but then, there’s a pan­demic in the air. And a video link al­lows you to watch only so much.

A man who laughed, told jokes, loved his wife, raised a son, nursed a mil­lion dreams, had died.

He was not a num­ber; he was a story.

Cry for him, please — and for every man, woman and child that we lost to this virus. They were not num­bers. They were sto­ries.

Cry for every young or mid­dle-aged man and woman who lost a job in these tough times; they are not num­bers. They are sto­ries.

He was not a num­ber; he was a story. Cry for him, please — and for every man, woman and child that we lost to this virus. They were not num­bers. They were sto­ries.

Cry for every child who went hun­gry since our pol­i­tics can­not match the size of our prob­lems; they are not num­bers. They are sto­ries.

Cry for every step of a mil­lions taken by my coun­try­women and men as they walked to their vil­lages be­cause our pol­i­tics and es­tab­lish­ment left them in the lurch; they are not num­bers. They are sto­ries.

Cry for every child who played around the dead body of his mother be­cause he or she still has to grow up and find out what ac­tu­ally hap­pened; that kid is­n’t a num­ber. It’s a kid who’ll some­day tell a hor­ri­ble, hor­ri­ble story, and your kid might lis­ten to it. Sto­ries travel, and they travel a very long way.

They will find you, or your chil­dren, or their chil­dren. Covid may not find us, but sto­ries will.

Cry be­cause we are liv­ing amid all these corpses of sto­ries dy­ing.

They aren’t num­bers. They are sto­ries.

Cry for every child who played around the dead body of his mother be­cause he or she still has to grow up and find out what ac­tu­ally hap­pened; that kid is­n’t a num­ber. It’s a kid who’ll some­day tell a hor­ri­ble, hor­ri­ble story, and your kid might lis­ten to it. Sto­ries travel, and they travel a very long way. They will find you, or your chil­dren, or their chil­dren. Covid may not find us, but sto­ries will.

Cry for that woman whose story might one day in­spire your child to draw a pic­ture of a woman po­lice of­fi­cer.

That day, thank Cha­ran­jit Singh, say a prayer for the sto­ries you let go, and write a thank you note to Surinder­jit Kaur.

SP Singh is a cur­rently work­ing-from-home se­nior jour­nal­ist, whose wife ven­tures out in uni­form, of­ten spend­ing a day or a night at an in­ter­na­tional air­port, in­ces­santly wor­ried that she might end up bring­ing the virus home for her hus­band.

Cour­tesy Note: A ver­sion of this story was first pub­lished by Newslaun­dry on June 17, 2020, with the head­line ‘Sto­ries, not sta­tis­tics: A Delhi cop comes to grips with los­ing her hus­band to Covid.’ It ap­pears here, cour­tesy that por­tal.