IT HAS BEEN almost a year now since I last sat at the head of the table at THE WEEK’s weekly review meeting. Since then, the pandemic has necessitated a change in the style of reviewing; the weekly review is now an email sent to all staff members. I do miss the banter, the compliments shared across the table for a nice headline or a memorable turn of phrase, the grudging appreciation for a rival publication’s work and so on. While I miss all that, I am grateful that providence has kept us and you, my dear reader, safe and healthy.

While the immediate crisis ushered in by the lockdown has vanished for many of us, it is not so for many others. Berjom Bamda Pahadiya’s story illustrates this fact. The 54-year-old from a village in Jharkhand’s Sahibganj district walked 1,200km from Delhi to reach his home on March 13. He says that his employer in Delhi not only refused to pay him, but also took his belongings and the little money he had saved. It took him over seven months as he walked along the railway tracks towards his village, working, begging and starving his way home. As he speaks only Santhali, he had limited means of communicating with the people he met on the way. His ordeal ended only when he reached Dhanbad, where someone understood what he was saying and guided him to Roti Bank, an NGO. The staff there helped him get home. I cannot even begin to imagine the relief his family must be feeling now.

What would have happened to Pahadiya if he had not met that unknown angel who guided him to Roti Bank? He would have reached home in time, of course. But when? In another month? Maybe. And only if providence remained as kind to him as it did for seven months. We often owe our lives to angels, don’t we? People who walk into our lives and change it… some with a kind word and some with a cup of tea, some with a single rupee and some others with a signature at the bottom of a page. Sometimes, we never meet them ever again. But we never forget them. Ever.

This issue of your favourite newsweekly is a tribute to the many heroes who touched lives during the pandemic. They come in all sizes and shapes, from all religions and regions, from different professions and with various educational backgrounds. They remind us that even when some people pull out knives and slash at things that hold us together, there is a togetherness that binds us, a shared soul that refuses to die.

Long back, before there was an app for anything and everything, Bina and I were in Johannesburg for a conference. We had been warned about street crime, but we thought it was restricted to certain localities. One night, after dinner, we took a walk and found the roads mostly deserted. It never occurred to us why, until a man passed us on the road and then turned back to greet us. “Good evening,” he said. “Are you headed anywhere?” Pleasantly surprised, we told him we were just out for a stroll. Thunderstruck, he insisted that we return to our hotel immediately, and stood there until we turned back.

What could have happened that night? Maybe nothing. Maybe something really bad. I do not know. But this I know, he was an angel in disguise, like the many in our cover story.