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    Coronavirus FAQ: Kids In India Ask Heartbreaking Questions. How Do You Answer Them?

    As the country faces the world's worst coronavirus crisis, children want to know: Will I catch it? Will grandfather die? What's it like to be an orphan?
    by Sushmita Pathak May 28, 2021 5 minutes
    As India suffers through a devastating coronavirus surge, children are asking difficult questions.

    Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. This week, we look at some of the questions being posed by children in India, which is in the midst of the world's worst outbreak. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.

    As Ritesh Banglani and his family sat down to dinner one evening at their home in Bengaluru in southern India, his younger son asked a strange question.

    "How do orphans live?" the 6-year-old wanted to know.

    "[My wife and I] were really taken aback," 43-year-old Banglani, who works in finance, tells NPR.

    This was in late April, when India was near the peak of its second coronavirus outbreak, the largest in the world. The country was seeing as many in a day and more than 4,000 daily deaths from COVID-19. Shortages of hospital beds, and medicines were rampant, and mass cremations were underway in many cities.

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