She fought threats, disdain to sanitize temples, mosques

By Nikita Sharma

LUCKNOW: Syed Usma Parveen, a patriot who tirelessly dedicates her life to help citizens, has sanitized over 60 temples, 30 mosques, and five churches in Lucknow so far during the pandemic. “I started with temples and sanitized 60 of them. Mosques, gurudwaras, and churches followed suit. The priests stopped me at first because the sanitizing liquid has alcohol but I insisted that in times of pandemic even God would permit that,” she said.

Braving community backlash for her revolutionary decision to sanitize places of worship, she continued with her work undaunted and finally won approval. “I was sanitizing a narrow pathway in a colony when some boys taunted me, saying that these jobs were not meant for women. My relatives also criticized me but I put all that aside for the need of the hour,” she said.

This COVID-19 warrior gives all the credit for her thinking to her father who, she said, had taught her to put her country above everything else, irrespective of caste or religion.

Besides her sanitizing duties, she also made it her business to provide the homeless immigrants, on their way back to their hometowns, with food and other resources. “I asked my friends to help me. We made pulao, packed it in small boxes, and gave it to the labourers. I noticed that their slippers were torn so I bought slippers for as many as I could,” she recalls.

Parveen used the funds which she had saved for her children’s higher education for this. “I thought this money can be saved later but right now my fellow citizens needed it more,” she said. Parveen has also been to the Singhu border during the farmer protests and provided meals to the demonstrators. Ask her how she carries such heavy sanitizing equipment on her back and she smiles. “I suffered from backbone problems after carrying a heavy cylinder on my back for months but I did not give up,” she said. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath bestowed her with the honour of ‘Corona Yodha’ for her selfless efforts. Parveen has now become a national celebrity and is often invited to colleges to inspire the youth, especially young women.

“The youth of our country should step out and raise their voice against issues that hamper the growth of the society. They are the future of our nation and unless they work for the nation’s betterment nothing will change for the good,” she said.

The story first appeared in The Times of Bennett, the lab newspaper produced by the first semester students of The Times School of Media.
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