i lost my beautiful friend today. she was the greatest, funniest, biggest hearted person who’d always stand you for a rum and Coke with a plate of kabobs. Shaoli was extremely high risk because of her underlying health conditions, and had been trying to get a vaccine 1/n https://twitter.com/shaolirudra/status/1378720343364276225

when she tested positive one month after her 35th birthday. her condition (thalassemia) meant she needed bi-monthly transfusions. Shaoli never let her health get in the way of living a rich, fulfilling life. We met as journalism students in Chennai 2/n

Where we were in a room with four (yes four!!) other women. After we graduated, we stayed in touch, our WhatsApp group was named room six, (our collective noun in college) Shaoli was by far (by far!) the friendliest and most popular one in our room. 3/n

She would stay up with you when you were sick, pay your auto rickshaw fare if you were out of change, travel across a humid, polluted city in a taxi to spend a few hours with you and your kid. She went all out for her friends every single time 4/n

When Shaoli told us she had tested positive, she said she was not feeling too awful. We hoped that, even though it was dangerous for her to be sick, that she would be spared with a mild case. We video chatted with her as she was waiting in line for blood tests. 5/n

She seemed okay! She was going to be fine. And then today I got the dreaded odd-hour call from India, the one that can only mean bad news. Shaoli had started feeling weak three days ago. there had been a longer than usual gap between transfusions. 6/n

NINE days before they opened up the vaccine to everyone, I lost my brilliant, funny, lion hearted friend. all because *she could not get a vaccine*. all because of pointless, hanlon’s razor bureaucracy. I will never see her again, I will never hear her mad laugh. I will never 7/n

eat fried chicken with dosas and watch shady movies on a laptop, because it is too hot to sleep in a room with a single ceiling fan and six people. I will never pick her up in my arms like a child, and swing her around and around until she feels like throwing up 8/n

we loved our friend Shaoli Rudra. She is not a statistic, not another bug squashed on the wind shield of a mismanaged pandemic. She was our sister, our heart. There is one less beautiful person on this earth, and it didn’t have to be this way. SHE SHOULD’VE BEEN VACCINATED.

Shaoli’s family clarified that while she had recovered from Covid, had started to regain her sense of taste and smell, she succumbed to complications from her underlying condition