VELLORE: Things were looking up for 45-year-old Sadiq Basha. After years of working at a hotel, he had finally started his own business. And then the pandemic struck. The Saidapet resident was admitted at the Christian Medical College Hospital on April 1. Just a week later, on April 7, he became the first person in Vellore district to die of COVID.
“He had started his own business of running a snack shop near the CMC Hospital just two months before that. Until then, he had worked with my hotel,” recalled Shaukat Ali, a near relative.
He was his family’s sole breadwinner and his death has left his wife, son and daughter in penury.
“As long as he was alive, he did not let me do any work. Now, I have no option but to bundle beedis for Rs 50 a day,” Basha’s wife Samshad said.
With the family struggling to pay the monthly house rent of Rs 4,000, Basha’s 19-year-old son has been forced to take up a temporary job.
“This is the first time that I am going to work because I have to support my family,” said youth, who is studying at a private college. His 16-year-old sister is in Class 11 at a government school.
“There is none to help us. I don’t know how I am going to bear the cost of children’s education,” Samshad said.