They lost to Covid-19, but their journeys live on in those they left behind

Conversations with families of those who've died due to Covid reveal personal tragedies that are not captured in govt data on the number of positive cases and the toll

Saif Ali of Munger (Bihar) returned from Qatar on March 2, 2020, with fever. On March 21, he fell silent, he was only 38, his sister’s fiancé Mohd Shahab recounts. Ali’s one among more than 125,000 who have lost their lives to Covid-19 in India, becoming a part of the fast-moving pandemic statistics. This was the first Covid case in Bihar at a time when much less was known about the infection and its aftermath, so it made news. But beyond that news was the 20-day journey and the trauma for Ali’s family, switching from one hospital to another, one