COVID-19 Vaccination: Aman Khatri was not able to go home for almsot six months during the pandemic.
For 20-year-old Aman Khatri, getting a Covid-19 vaccination today was one of the best things to happen in almost 10 months, for most of which he couldn't even go home. Mortuary cleaning at New Delhi's Rajeev Gandhi Speciality Hospital may not have been the ideal job to have during a raging global pandemic.
Today, however, he is relieved and happy after receiving a jab as part of the nationwide inoculation drive launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He is also one of the millions of Indian health care and frontline workers - many of whom lost their lives - that PM Modi paid tributes to at the launch.
"These past 10 months have been extremely difficult. My family asked me to quit the job, but I hung on," Mr Khatri told NDTV. "Everyone should get this vaccine."
Handling the dead can be a difficult job at the best of times. The young man had it all the more difficult these past many months as he couldn't even go home for almost six months for fear of spreading the disease.
"People would call in their children playing in the streets hurriedly if I passed by. They'd say things like 'He's bringing corona'," Mr Khatri said. "Even working in the mortuary was scary. The moment I stepped out of the PPE kit everything would look so blurry."
Yet, that may not have been his worst pandemic experience.
"Explaining things to the family members of the dead was the most difficult," he said.