Covid Patient Shunned By Boatmen Launches Ambulance Shikara For Dal Dwellers

When Tariq Ahmad Patloo recovered from Covid in August and wanted to be rowed to his houseboat, the shikarawallas, most of whom he was friends with, refused.

Hurt beyond measure, he decided to do something about it. Patloo, who resides in the golden Dal Lake area and owns a houseboat called Sea Palace, has come up with an ambulance shikara for the Dal dwellers.

Patloo put the Shikara on trial today. He is already getting a lot of calls from Dal dwellers when the shikara ambulance will be ready. “Dal dwellers need it the most, who knows it better than me,” he said.

“The width of ambulance shikara is double than a normal one,” he said. “It would be like big critical-care ambulance. It needs a doctor and paramedic and one driver. I am hopeful that the government would help me that,” he said. “I need a doctor for it. Without a doctor it would be showpiece. I will talk to the government and if they provide a doctor it would help the Dal Lake people a lot.”

Patloo said after infected with the illness, the attitude of people started changing towards him. He said he was ill for about 20 days and admitted in the SMHS Hospital where he remained for around nine days.

“In the first 20 days of my illness, one day I was coming back from medical check-up. I reached ghat number 9 and I asked shikarawallas over there to take me to my houseboat. All of them knew me well but they started avoiding me. I started to cry and told them that nothing will happen to them but they still refused to take me to my houseboat. I was very ill but their attitude made me sick. I felt sad. My heart sank that day,” he said.

Patloo said he contracted illness after his aunt died of a heart attack. His aunt was also living in Dal Lake. “Someone who came to condole her death had Covid-19 and he infected a number of people there. I was one among them,” he said. After he tested positive, he isolated himself and asked his wife and children to stay away from him.

In the meantime, word spread in the Lake area that he is Covid-19 positive and shikarawallas refused to take him to the shore. He said his brother who lives in the Nishat area would come from there, row the boat to take him to shore and from there drive him to the hospital.

“There was a time when my wife was not ferried in a shikara even though she had tested negative. Even vendors refused to provide vegetables to us,” he said.

“It is different to get Covid-19 in the Dal Lake. People here know you unlike other places and when people refuse to ferry you what can you do? You cannot swim to the Dal banks,” he said.

In the hospital, he said he saw saw a different world. “Some Covid-19 patients had several attendants and some had none. I wrote about the patients and what happened to me on Facebook and soon after that my mobile was stolen. All these events broke my heart,” he said.

Patloo says after coming back from hospital, the idea of a shikara ambulance started taking shape in his mind for the Dal people. “I was very weak those days but I discussed the idea with to Dr Nivedita P. Haran, who is member of an expert committee on Dal Lake. I knew her because of my social work. She also runs Satya Rekha Trust. She gave me the go-ahead. Her Trust helped me financially and so did Dr Nivedita. I designed the ambulance shikara myself,” he said.