The COVID-19 situation in India is heartbreaking.

India is the country I first called home, before my parents embarked on the long and lonely journey with me in their arms, as they packed up their lives to find a new home in Australia in the 1980s.
Australia is my home now, but I feel an enduring connection to India. I feel connected to its peoples, its customs and ultimately, to India's vital and lasting contributions over millennia to world thought and culture.
It is for this reason that seeing the COVID-19 situation in India feels so tragic and heartbreaking. Beyond the personal stories of hearing about extended family members suffering from COVID-19, the country is grappling with a catastrophe.
The situation itself is hard to describe or explain to people who have never visited a nation as rich yet complicated as India. For those in developed cities, there is a lack of hospital beds while doctors and supporting medical staff are beyond breaking point.
People are dying. Lots, and lots of people are dying. The lucky ones are dying in hospitals. The rest are dying in the streets. Some people are dying in their homes. Crematoriums are not only full but have no more firewood. City parks and car parks are now sites for cremation.
The official statistics give a degree of precision but I do not think they tell the full picture. How can we know the true extent of cases when there is a lack of testing supplies, testing sites and testing kits? This is not what's happening in rural and remote regions of India.
This is not confined to what the West terms "urban slums". This is impacting upon the whole of India's population. Those who manufacture the exports that we use in countries like the US, Australia and the UK. Those who sit across from us on Zoom calls are the ones impacted.
To understand the true extent of the numbers of people afflicted by the virus, we must look to the number of fatalities not the confirmed cases. And when car parks are being used as crematoriums, we get some picture of just how different the reported numbers are from reality.
I have read estimates that put the death toll at ten times that which is reported. And yet, I sit here, as an Indian-born Australian, helpless and hopeless. Family members are living with, and dying from, COVID-19. The Indian Government is fuelling the flames of skepticism.
And the Australian media barely mentions it. Sure, ABC News covers it. Journalists like @ellenmfanning make it a point to address the issue head-on on #TheDrum (@abcnews). But what of mainstream media and news?
India and Australia share more than a love of cricket, curry and a Commonwealth history. They are, or rather should be, by all accounts, the best of friends in our diplomacy, our trade and foreign relations. Yet, the average Australian will no idea what is happening.
I feel disgusted by the lack of response from the Indian government that is allowing a human rights catastrophe to unfold. But I feel disappointed in us, here in Australia, watching on with the power to waive intellectual property rights to vaccines.
But we're not doing that. We're not supporting one of our so-called best friends to empower and self-determine and rid itself of this virus. While here in Australia we complain about when international travel will resume, we ought to pressure our government to support others.
Until we realise that this virus tearing India apart actually affects us here too, we will all be diminished. The lives of the ultra-rich will continue on in their bubble. But for the rest of us, the COVID-19 catastrophe in India is a reckoning. I hope we heed its message.

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More from @tarang_chawla

21 Apr
After seeing a common response to my comments on the killing of #KellyWilkinson, I want to clear up a misconception. Those who claim that I blame all men for men’s violence or violence against women have fundamentally missed my point.
Perhaps, from otherwise noble intentions, they have misunderstood what I’ve been saying all along: I don’t say all men are violent or that all men are to blame for the actions of others. I say all men are responsible for helping end violence against women. There’s a difference.
We live in a culture that continues to mistreat women. Stress harassment, workplace inequality, unequal representation. A culture where men commit the overwhelming majority of violence, regardless of the gender of the victim. This doesn’t occur in a vacuum.
Read 10 tweets
20 Apr
#HERNAMEIS KELLY WILKINSON
At 7am this morning, police attended a Gold Coast home where they found the body of Kelly Wilkinson tied and burnt. Kelly's three children all aged under 9 were inside the home.
Queensland police have charged a 34-year-old man with murder and breaching a domestic violence order.

Before someone comments #NotAllMen, let me abundantly clear: All men play a responsibility in addressing the attitudes that lead to men's violence against women.
Kelly Wilkinson's death was preventable. She had a domestic violence order taken out against this man. Yet the degree of men's entitlement that leads to such crimes must be addressed at every level.
Read 4 tweets
18 Apr
Reminder that Ralph Lauren is pronounced 'Lauren' not 'Loren'. Ralph Lauren was born Ralph Lifshitz, the son of Jewish immigrants from Belarus. He changed his name to 'Lauren' in the mid-1950s before he began selling the idea of elite American lifestyle back to the Americans.
This is what Ralph Lauren looks like, dressed in a double-breasted black silk, wool and mohair tuxedo with grosgrain facings, broad peak lapels and a structured shoulder. Image
Every day I worked in menswear, I would meet well-to-do bankers and similar men, who would say 'Loren' as a means of sounding "classier", The beautiful, hilarious irony of it was that they came across uninformed on who Ralph Lauren is, his brand and the identity behind it.
Read 4 tweets
24 Aug 20
1/ Today is 32 years to the day since my parents moved to Australia and brought little infant me along with them. I spent my childhood riding my bike in my favourite gum boots, wearing my Australia sweater and Stack Hat helmet.
2/ In 2020 Australia, people who look like me rarely, if ever, get elected to positions of power and decision-making. We’re rarely, if ever, in positions where our differences are celebrated and not criticised.
3/ In 2020 Australia, as we live with the fear and threat of #COVID19, and the treatment of those seeking a safe haven in Australia is an indelible mark against our nation, I’ve been thinking about what skin colour means in today’s Australia.
Read 22 tweets
16 Apr 20
MISOGYNY IS NEVER OK.

Earlier today I was sent these images about a male-only group on Facebook called “Melb guys pal”.

The boys and men in this group are sharing explicit videos and pictures of their female exes, without their consent.
One of the individuals has wished for a holocaust for women.

Another has encouraged the group members to ‘like’ his post so he can share more explicit images of his ex-partner.

The group is littered with examples of rampant misogyny, sexism and degradation of women.
Arguably, the most tame commentary in this group is referring to women as “dishwashers” and degrading what these so-called “men” see as “women’s work.”

Sexism and misogyny is never OK. Not just because we are in a global pandemic of a novel #coronavirus, but all the time.
Read 8 tweets
30 May 19
1 - AN OPEN LETTER TO “GOOD MEN” EVERYWHERE

At the start of this week a website from 2017 resurfaced, with a “guide” for men on how to “get” women, as though women are objects to be traded or exchanged as part of some pick-up economy.
2 - In its wake, women have spoken out yet again about the fear that they live with on a daily basis. It’s scarily common how many women will clutch their keys when they walk outside in case they are attacked, or tell multiple friends when they’re going somewhere “just in case”,
3 - or have a fully thought out “exit plan” to get out of any potential dangerous situation. What’s a dangerous situation? Any situation where a man might hurt them.

Guys, let that sink in for a minute.
Read 25 tweets

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