My mother's story of Covid19
Lockdown affecting lives
My mum is seamstress, or simply we call it ladies tailor. We live in the heart of Nepal, Kathmandu city. She owns her small business, her customer includes local women of the town. I must say she is best at what she does, very passionate and productive women. She has been doing this tailoring for over 20 years now. Previously, she used to rent a place for her shop but a few years back she made small space in our own house and with necessary furnishing, she started here.
I am just another person who is working from home, seldom bore, tries to be productive. In these difficult times, mum likes to cook different foods, watch daily doses of ‘Sidha Kura Janata Sanga’, comment on almost all pictures of my relatives that they post daily because they are also bored.
One day I find my mum down below working in her tailoring shop. I asked her why she is even working because everything is locked down, the person whose cloth you are sewing won't probably be able to pick up, sewing clothes is not important right now, it doesn't make sense, right? She replied me with a story about her one customer (let's say her Sita).
Sita was almost 5 months pregnant when this lockdown started. She almost always sews her clothes from mum. She mostly wears ‘Kurtha Surwal’ because she finds it comforting. Now that the lockdown is ongoing and so is her pregnancy, her belly starts to increase. She didn't prepare for her clothing at this time of her pregnancy because, like most of us, she didn't see this coming. So, a few days back she wakes up early and rings up our bell and requests my mum for necessary clothing.
That was the moment I realized this is a much more challenging time than I thought it was. Remembering homeless people who rely on leftover street food, those workers whose income is their daily wage, those Sitas who are not only deprived of medical service but also from basic clothing, tourists who are stuck in a foreign land, students who are far from their family without any money and rent bills to pay, those street dogs and cats.
I felt like I should put this story in words, so putting it here. Thank you for reading. Take care and stay safe.
