KASARAGOD: In the first week of May, 10-year-old Hazarika SR phoned her father Ravindran Pulikkal (52) and asked, "Why don't you check whether we are alive!"
Two days before the call, a summer storm had destroyed the tin roof of Pullikal's house in Madikai.
Pulikkal, a junior health inspector (JHI) in Chemnad panchayat -- 30km away -- last visited his house on Vishu on April 14 for a day. He is making an RCC house nearby and knows he will have to shift his wife Sheeja and two daughters to the new house before the monsoon sets in.
But Pulikkal has little time for that or his family now. Hazarika was lucky to get through her father, for his phone is always engaged, if he is not in a meeting.
Malayalees across the world -- from doctors in the US to labourers in Qatar -- call him to clear doubts on COVID, quarantine, and on how to get back to Kerala. The beneficiaries of his kindness had made his phone number go viral. "Some days, I have attended to 600 calls," he said.
Pulikkal -- who stays near the Chemnad panchayat office building -- wakes up at 2.30 am, disinfects his room, office, take bath, prepare and has breakfast, and will be ready for the public service at 6 am. From pregnant women seeking assistance to go to hospitals to kidney patients needing medicines, he attends to all the people’s needs. When he saw six migrant workers walking on the highway, he found a place for them to stay. For the past 40 days, he is arranging food for them. "I am able to do this because the panchayat has a lot of kind-hearted people. No one knows about them," he said.
In the first phase of COVID-19 when Kasargod had 178 confirmed cases, Chemnad was a hotspot and in triple lockdown. It had 39 COVID cases, the highest in a panchayat in Kerala.
To be sure, helping people is not part of his job. The JHI has to disinfect houses where suspects are in quarantine, trace contacts, help prepare route maps, and even clean up hospital waste.
When active cases fell to zero in the district, the borders were opened for inter-state travel on May 4. On the first day, only one person registered with NORKA to come to Chemnad, but 13 persons arrived. On May 15, 12 persons landed unannounced. "People are coming in vegetable and container trucks, and on foot. We have to prepare quarantine facility for them in short notice, and begin contact tracing," he said.
Hazarika will have to wait for long.