Our Reporter
Dimapur, May 23 (EMN)
No sooner did passengers from Chennai reach Dimapur on Friday May 22, a picture of a lady carrying a pressure cooker at the Dimapur railway station went viral by Friday night.
Social media, normally full of trolls and unpleasant observers who spare no person or thing, gave a reason to the keyboard warriors to troll the unidentified lady carrying the pressure cooker.
Insensitive and disrespectful comments took jibes at the lady, making fun of her: "Returnee from Chennai. The pressure cooker must be really expensive," was a comment, while another observed, "I have never seen someone so well prepared for quarantine..."
Eastern Mirror contacted the lady who is currently in quarantine in Dimapur. She is said to be upset with the photo of her going viral on social media. She reportedly came across her picture on Facebook and was not happy with the way her situation was being mocked.
Supporting the lady, her friends told Eastern Mirror that ‘only those who have been through the ordeal from Chennai to Dimapur will understand their plight.’
The lady has an appeal to administrators of the Facebook groups: Remove her photograph from their groups.
The lady, who wishes to remain anonymous, said the story behind the pressure cooker was to sustain herself and her friends during their journey as they knew they would not be provided with food in the train.
‘As a Naga we cannot live without rice. So, I along with my roommates and my colleagues, who live in another house, decided to cook food for our journey. So we cooked food for the six of us. Since it is summer, we know that our food will be spoilt. So, we decided to carry the food in the cooker itself without bothering about people's judgement and we did not even think about people judging us,’ she said.
Although they had used disposal plates to have food, she said, "How can I throw away the pressure cooker and once we reached Dimapur station, I did not bother or think about anything and carried the pressure cooker in my hand."
The lady said they were provided with water, bread and butter but no other food in the train as they had expected. Fortunately, they had food prepared.
Not many people know of our struggle, she lamented but that it was for survival.
The lady said she was working in the private sector in Chennai. Talking about the possibility of losing her job during these difficult times, she said her employer has assured her about her job being secure and once the pandemic is over, she hopes to rejoin her work.