Letter from India: They called me Corona

A health worker collects a swab sample from a child, resident of a containment zone to test for the Covid-19 coronavirus in Kolkata. 

Photo credit: Nation| File

What you need to know:

  • They called the police on us.
  • The policemen whisked us away like sacks of potatoes to a government hospital for screening while subjecting us to endless questions on how we came to exist in India.
  • None of us had planned to be screened that day, but they let us go after the results turned out negative.

This story begins in a bus but ends up riding down a familiar but painful memory lane of discrimination and stigma amid the Covid-19 pandemic. 

As you know by now, I'm a black Kenyan journalist studying in India

One of the things I miss about home is the matatu culture. Blasting music. Graffiti. Even rude "makangas". I miss all that. The buses here are nothing like that.  

Two kinds of buses

India has two kinds of buses: sleeper coaches fitted with tiny beds good enough to let you catch some sleep and also very weird-looking  buses that are just too crowded. I don't like them. 

On arriving in Udaipur city where I live using one of these buses, one of my black Kenyan friends invited me to her house for lunch. We took a bus ride there. She lived on the sixth floor, and as we made for the elevator, her neighbour immediately got out and shouted "Corona! Foreigners! Corona!". 

All foreigners were now called Corona. 

I've had many nicknames in my life, but none of them ever hurt so deeply. 

Whisked away like sacks of potatoes 

We went mute as Indians surrounded us,  shouting to protest our entry into the estate. They used unprintable words to describe us. That unfortunate day, our very existence as human beings was now entirely on lockdown .

They did not stop there.

They called the police on us. The policemen whisked us away like sacks of potatoes to a government hospital for screening while subjecting us to endless questions on how we came to exist in India. None of us had planned to be screened that day, but they let us go after the results turned out negative. I still ask myself, what would have happened to us if their fears had been confirmed?

The answer scares me.