Exactly two years ago — March 22, 2020 — a city that is perpetually in the celebratory mode plunged into an unprecedented silence. From planes flying overhead to hawkers calling out on the street, all familiar sources of noise suddenly stood subtracted that morning in Kolkata.
On the brighter side, this uneasy silence, brought upon by a precautionary lockdown announced by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, was meant to last only till the end of that month. It was expected that by then, the only two cases of COVID-19 reported in Kolkata would have been dealt with and the city would be free of the deadly infection.
Little did one imagine — not even the city where imagination plays a key role in its cultural landscape. Two years on — while the planes are flying as normal and the hawkers are back, calling out with more desperation — Kolkata stood as scarred by the pandemic as any other metropolis in India. During these 24 months, West Bengal saw over 20 lakh people getting infected by COVID-19 and over 21,000 dying because of it, with Kolkata accounting for the bulk of these official figures.
