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EXCLUSIVE: COVID 19 nurse Shikha Malhotra celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi with style; Applies mehendi on her gloves
Shikha Malhotra, who has been serving COVID 19 patients for five months, celebrates Ganesh Mahotsav in a special way with her global pandemic family.
The COVID 19 pandemic has changed the way we have lived our lives until now. It not only brought the life to a halt but also introduced us to a new normal where PPE kits, masks, face shields, gloves and sanitizers have become our saviours against the highly transmissible disease. In this pandemic, our doctors and medical staff have been the frontline warriors who have been leaving no stone unturned to save millions of lives infected by the deadly virus.
Interestingly, during this pandemic, several actors with a medical background, came forward to help the COVID 19 patients and left behind their acting career. Amid this is Shikha Malhotra, a certified nurse turned actress, who made the headlines with her performance in Sanjay Mishra starrer Kaanchli Life In A Slough. The lady has been treating the COVID 19 patients for five months now. Recently, Shikha grabbed the headlines after she celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi in a different style while treating COVID 19 patients at the ICU. Yes! The actress had applied mehendi on her gloves and was seen spreading positivity among her patients.
In an exclusive conversation, Shikha spoke about what keeps her going in these difficult times and about her idea of applying mehendi on the gloves. Here's are the excerpts of the interview:
What are you doing to keep yourself positive?
It’s been 5 months since I’ve joined Covid19 Army as a Nursing Officer on March 27th. It’s not at all normal to witness life and death in your day to day routine and leaving my acting career behind. When I’ve started working as a frontline there is this one thing which keeps me positive in every circumstance that is “I see myself and my family members at the patients' place who are facing a deep pain and battling between life and death without their loved ones” and that keeps an emotion alive in me that no matter what every time I have to get up and go back to the ward and smile with the same positivity and tell the patients that you’ll meet your loved ones soon !!
How did you come up with this idea of mehndi on gloves?
Last evening I was working in ICU isolation ward where we have all the critical patients. Just after I finished medication and patients feed, I sat for a few mins and just started thinking that the first thing I would do in Ganpati or any festival is to put Mehendi on my hands. But suddenly I looked around and thought that all of these patients need me right now more than I go out and celebrate. So I decided why not to put mehendi right now and share it with the patients as they are my family members in the global pandemic since I haven’t been able to meet my family since long in the global pandemic. So without a second thought I picked up a red pen started making mehendi and while doing this I was emotional imagining my mom dad sitting beside me and I rolled down tears in PPE Kit. But the very next moment I completed my creative mehendi art and I went to share this mehendi with the patients and shared my smile with them telling them that “So what if we can’t celebrate the festivals this time with our loved ones. We are each other’s family and they smiled looking at my mehendi”
How this festival is different from last year?
The biggest thing in this Global pandemic crisis is that as a front liner it’s been long, I couldn’t even see my parents as they are in Delhi. Even on Rakhi I was in the hospital uniform and did my rakhi with my only elder brother on video calling which has happened first time ever and even on Ganpati the way every year I put on bindi, jhumka, chudi, wear heavy beautiful traditional wears with the mehendi and visit everyone’s house but this time I am in uniform and no one has invited me because of being at the frontline there is this huge risk of spreading infection. So I am all alone at home and celebrating my festivities with my beautiful patients ( my global pandemic family members) for long hours in the ICU isolation ward !!
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