AN INTERNATIONAL student, who arrived in India amid the devastating coronavirus crisis, says she has barricaded herself in her home out fear for her life in the virus-stricken country.

Raveena Singi Reddy left Scotland on March 30 after living in the UK for 18 months on a student visa, but in a short few weeks after arriving back in her home country, it has been brought to its knees because of a spike in virus cases.

Like everyone else across Scotland, the engineering graduate had been living in Dunfermline under a strict lockdown for several months and at first was "shocked" to see life had gone "back to normal" in her city of Hyderabad, in southern India.

But, now with the health emergency at crisis point, even an upper middle-class family like Raveena's are fearful that there will be no help for treatment if they catch Covid.

"I thought everything must be ok here when I came out of the airport," Raveena, aged 25, explained.

The Herald:

"Everybody was going about their lives as normal; the roads were really busy, and all non-essential shops were open.

"Even now there has been no official lockdown in my state Telangana, but a lot of people, including my family, are just staying at home.

"Only my dad goes out for some food for us in the mornings.

"We are all very scared because of the hospital situation, even a middle-class family cannot get access to medical help. Only the richest of the rich will get facilities.

"Nobody is going to save you so it's a life and death situation if you go out - you're putting your life at stake.

"At least in Scotland I knew if I took ill, I would get care, but not here."

The Herald:

India reported 379,257 new infections and 3,645 new deaths on Thursday (April 29) and while Deli is the worst affected place, cases are now rising in smaller towns and cities.

Maharashtra tops the list of most Coronavirus-affected states in India which borders Telangana. Ravenna explained that people have been trying to build a wall to stop residents from Maharashtra coming into her home state.

"We're not the worse affected place but there are still so many cases," she continued.

"On Tuesday, there was 8,000 cases in a day in Telangana. And they predict by mid-May there will be a million cases a day in India if this continues.

"It's already close to home, just last week a neighbour's husband dies. The whole family got Covid, and their son is still in hospital.

"The only thing that our state government has done is cancel board exams; all shops, restaurants etc are still open.

"It wasn't until April 15 that a second big wave was really talked about.

"In north India there has been elections and there were lots of big rallies with no social distancing going on and huge crowds. They think this is how it started off and then spread around slum areas.

"In Telangana people have been building a fence to keep people from Maharashtra coming in as there's no official word about shutting down borders.

"The situation seem to be getting worse, you here of people just dying in queues as they stand out in the sun trying to get a bed in a hospital.

"More oxygen is coming in now but there are still many deaths and the poorest are being left to die.

"The poor don't have a choice but to go out and work because if they don't, they won't eat.

"Politicians have been talking about bringing in a curfew at night but it feels like it's just a namesake, so it looks like they are doing something."

 

Ravenna came to the UK in September 2019 to study MSc Energy and Sustainability at University of Southampton where she met her Scottish boyfriend, Lewis Farrar.

After graduating a year later, she moved to Fife with Lewis and worked at Amazon's warehouse in Dunfermline while she looked for a job in the energy sector.

Despite interviews and a job offer, she didn't secure sponsorship and had to leave Scotland at the end of March.

Ravenna said: "The job situation is even harder in India than in the UK. No-one is looking to take on a graduate, companies are downsizing and even when I offer to work for free, there is no way to get experience.

"When I saw that India was put on the UK's red list I just cried, there's just so much uncertainty and I don't know when I'll see my partner again.

"It's certainly been a shock to coming from Scotland and into India. I was living in isolation in Fife and when I came home it felt like the total opposite.

"I felt like I arrived at some sort of carnival, people were just going about their normal lives and for a short while I was happy to see some normality.

"But that quickly came crashing down. I don't know what will happen in these coming weeks but we're all extremely frightened."