My mother – Bhupinder Kaur Bedi, an Army wife – is on a mission! She has been following the COVID-19 crisis since the beginning. Being the mother of three doctors (and mother-in-law of another three (one a distinguished General (retd) of the Army Medical Corps AMC) and grandmother of one, she understands the medical part to some extent also.
She was specially angry to know that quite a lot of doctors and healthcare workers were running short of masks.
She is very good at stitching on her old – but still perfectly working – Usha sewing machine, which she got as a present on her wedding day in 1951!
It only took one sample of a mask for her to realise that it was a simple task for her to stitch it. She got some pieces of cotton which she had got recently for her own dress and started stitching. It’s been three weeks since she started doing this.
“I can make upto 100 a day,”she says confidently. It takes her about six hours approximately, working off and on. Hundred is on her best day – less on others.
After her morning prayers, breakfast and reading her newspaper, she still needs her printed version and that too ironed. Yes, she irons the paper herself, she dislikes crinkle newspapers. She starts on her machine by 9 am and my wife does some of the cutting (naturally – she is a surgeon).
Being unable to get new cloth as the shops are closed – she uses some old cloth pieces and also some of my cotton shirts – old and new!
She initially gave the masks to me to use and distribute in the hospital – but when that shortage was quickly resolved by the hospital – she started distributing the masks to poor people who come to the nearby gurudwara for langar and to residents of Mohali village, as masks are now compulsory. Others like the sanitation workers, gas delivery drivers, vegetable vendors, etc have also benefitted from her largesse.
She is very positive that the current crisis will be over soon. “The government is taking the right steps,” she says.
She is proud of us and never stops us – my wife and I, and all our doctor colleagues from stepping out and performing our duties.
In fact, as she is an Army wife (my father was a Senior Paratrooper Commando Officer and participated with valour in the 1962 Indo-China and 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars) – she exhorts all my doctor colleagues to do their duty – but to take due precautions. Her generation has seen the partition and the wars – as children, wives of Army men and as mothers. Curfews, blackouts and sirens are very familiar to her.
She shrugs off the ‘so called’ problems of lockdown with a scorn – “We have survived bombings and air raids, looked after three children and four dogs when your father was at a forward station and shifted six times at a short notice during postings,” she tells me. “And no phone or internet or TV,” she further adds.
She exhorts us to embrace the situation. “You can be your own hero. You are like a soldier now, please abide by your duties.” My mother’s generation is a tough one. They can take any curveball that life may throw at them .
“We shall overcome!” she says with a gentle twinkly smile as she continues her stitching. So till when will you make the masks, mum? I asked her. “Masks till needed,” she sternly says. But now the number of masks stitched has dropped to 50 a day – she has run out of my old shirts and sheets.
Watch out COVID-19 – you are outranked!
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