A year after: A nation altered by the viral second wave

India has the highest seven-day Covid-19 case trajectory seen in any country and the grim distinction of most single-day infections in any country ever since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

Apr 22, 2021, 12:59 IST4 min

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It&rsquos been a year since Jayashankar, a frontend web developer with a major software company, moved from Bengaluru with his wife Jyothi, also a database engineer, to his village Venkatagirikota in Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh. A year later, he lists the many "happy" changes working from home: The mobile and internet connectivity has improved, they&rsquove had a second child, their

Image by Nagarjuna Reddy

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Rajesh Ujala, a contract health worker, is a familiar figure at the Nigambodh Ghat crematorium in New Delhi, the capital"s largest, witnessing the ebb and crest of deaths that have passed from the mortuary through his hands since early last year. On Thursday afternoon, it took much more out of the team to haul a Covid-19 victim who was stricken with a rare case of obesity. Rajesh later sa

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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On February 21 last year, Sunil Rampuria hosted a vibrant group of Italian tourists at Gaj Kesri, his elegant art hotel in Bikaner. Two weeks later, the Italians, journeying onward on the tourist circuit tested positive for the coronavirus, the early cases in the news that triggered contact tracing. The hotel went into a complete lockdown, with most of the Bengali staff leaving for home.

Image by Amit Verma

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For the 40-year-old housewife Shrijamol from Kaniyambetta, Wayanad, it is an everyday struggle managing the household and a school-going son on her mother&rsquos meagre widowers&rsquo pension. Separated from her husband for over three years now, she is hoping to benefit from the promise that political parties in Kerala made recently as an election plank: A monthly pension to housewives ag

Image by Mexy Xavier

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As the head of digital marketing at a reputed FMCG in Bengaluru, Dipti Sudhir deals with many video call meetings in a day, a norm for many in the work-from-home scenario that the pandemic ushered in last year. Dipti misses the energy of face-to-face meetings in the office environment, a sense of dynamism that rose from having a large team in a room, feeding on cues, setting off a chain-r

Image by Sridhar

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When the pandemic hit, Robotics Warehouse Automation company Addverb Technologies were in the midst of building an ambitious new facility called "Bot valley" for manufacturing robots in Noida. Work had to be stalled as labourers on the construction site left for home. Spurred by the team&rsquos enthusiasm, the founders took a call, and the team shifted in, even though the shop floor was i

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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The Covid-19 situation may have rapidly deteriorated in New Delhi with the positivity rate at 32 percent, the highest-ever in the capital. Which would make this scene at Delhi&rsquos Sadar Bazar&mdashjust before the weekend lockdown&mdashan unbelievable sight. How would one explain away the easygoing attitude to social distancing and masking? Is it an ease born of knowing that there are n

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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About sixty six kilometers from Haridwar&mdashwhere the ongoing Kumbh Mela gathering of lakhs has been curtailed after many tested positive for the virus&mdashis the agricultural heartland of Shahidwala Grunt. Zakir Ali is cycling the afternoon away along fields of wheat, ripe for harvest. In the sparsely populated village which has not had a single case of Covid-19 yet, Zakir&rsquos scho

Image by Madhu Kapparath

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A police officer patrols on a segway scooter on the deserted Marine Drive promenade during the night curfew following the rise in Covid-19 cases in Mumbai. The arc of this promenade is otherwise alive with strollers&mdashespecially women who find it safe&mdashthrough the night, a showcase for the cosmopolitan character of this sprawling, impossibly crowded city.

Image by Deepak Turbhekar

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A banquet hall in New Delhi"s Daryaganj has become the first facility to be converted into a Covid-19 care centre to cope with the surge of cases. Linked with the biggest Covid-19 state-run LNJP hospital in New Delhi, Shehnai Banquet Hall with 120 beds is being run by an NGO called Doctors For You. Among the early patients at the Hall was Sheetal Jain, a young lawyer who had been admitted

Image by Madhu Kapparath