Not all superheroes wear capes. In times of duress like that of now where we are amidst a raging pandemic, heroes are those who have silently been working to help the beleaguered relatives and the Covid-19 patients battling the disease. In the face of so much death and distress, these good folks have been trying to reach out to as many people as possible with their selfless work and concern for those who are suffering. Among these legions of good samaritans is also Team Avengers. A diverse group of professionals, just 6 in number when they started out and now 54 member-strong, were brought together by Delhi-based professional Abhijeet Dutta. They are now providing homemade meals, oxygen cans, medicines, food packets and medical kits and accessible doctor’s consultation for anyone who is in need of them.
Watching the unprecedented breakdown of the healthcare facilities in and around Delhi has been heartbreaking and Dutta feels in such an all-hands-on-deck scenario, it is a moral duty to help as many as one can. “I saw a friend struggling to get his family members hospital beds or oxygen cylinders because there weren’t just any available. Seeing friends losing their kin to the dreaded disease was also a trigger point to start doing something for the people,” he said.
The group, which started working on WhatsApp to begin with, brought together friends and acquaintances to help those suffering from the repercussions of the pandemic. Friends living abroad, from United States, Canada, Germany have also been providing monetary contributions or helping with technical assistance to streamline the process. Starting with providing leads on ICU beds, oxygen, medicines to those who needed assistance, the group then started to provide food to families or people in quarantine, eventually branching out by helping them with oxygen cans, cooked meals for those with dire need in Gurgaon, Faridabad, Gorakhpur, Jhansi and parts of Delhi.
Dutta adds, “Everybody in the group is playing their part to help with the initiative. Some are preparing the meals, some are looking at the financial streamlining procedure, some are ensuring smooth delivery of the meals. The second wave has been devastating. There have been whole families who are infected and quarantined and it’s been very tough for them to manage.”
The Avengers team has also been providing free meals and ration packets to migrants workers who have been hit by the lockdowns. But Dutta believes awareness is of utmost importance if we want to bring down the positive numbers of Covid-19 cases and as part of spreading awareness, medical kits and face masks are also being distributed to economically backward areas and to people on the streets at large.
People cutting across all ages and sections of society have joined Dutta in this initiative. Colonel Shashank Kaushal (retd) has been in charge of the food distribution drives in Gurgaon along with helping with teleconsultation with a few doctors for patients. Deepshika Singh Khan has been taking care of the kit and food distribution in Faridabad. Ruchi Mahajan from Noida, who was in charge of the accounts for the funds was also distributing food packets on the streets. Roli Singh, who hails from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh has also been helping to provide food and aid to people from her native place.
To devote full time to the drive, Dutta himself took a month’s leave from his work to help organize the entire initiative.
“It was the need of the hour. not everybody can work through an NGO but we can all definitely help as much as we can. As Leo Tolstoy once said, If you feel pain, you’re human. If you feel other people’s pain, you’re a human being. I think we all need this right now,” he rounds off.
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