The Lockdown
This is what the world has come to. A stop.
Everything was quite alright and normal. The world and its so-called superior inhabitants were going on in their normal chaotic fashion. If you would have wanted to take a glimpse of them, you didn’t have to search, just go on any street, they would always be there in herds, some walking, some riding their vehicles that also of various forms. They would be coming from both sides and going to the other. Some speeding, some crawling but wanting to go quite as fast. They make some noises using their vehicles of various types. Maybe they want to say something, but nobody listens. All of them are just looking at some light. Oh, the light changes its color, and see they again start running. Wherever you see there are humans busy running here and there.
Alas, where have they gone now? Empty streets, empty buildings, nobody coming from the far end of the street. Oh, there is one coming but it has put something on its face. Why are they hiding their faces? Are they ashamed of something they did?
What happened all of a sudden.
Let’s see what happened...
2 people died due to corona in Wuhan… read an app notification from the Indian Express app. I was surprised. It was my favorite. I used to love corona. Oh, maybe it would have gone bad and it would have lead to poisoning. I opened the notification out of curiosity only to find out that it wasn’t the beer I used to love. But it was some kind of virus that leads to flu-like illness.
But nobody would have thought that it’s going to be a world disaster. It was highly contagious. It started spreading from one app notifications to all the others. And to my surprise not just apps it spread in humans as well. The whole world came under its influence. In this world, It applied a sudden brake while holding the clutch. And left it skidding before coming to a stop. And so our country also came to a stop on 24th March 2020. The PM announced that there’ll be a lockdown of 21 days, said that the daily essentials will continue to be available, and appealed to the countrymen to maintain social distancing. Offices implemented the work from home policies. My flatmate came to me and said that there’s going to be a lockdown so we should get groceries. I was like ok, let’s go get it. When I came out in the market, I was flabbergasted by the view of social distancing being maintained by countrymen. The grocery shops were crowded. People kept pouring on in numbers as if there is no tomorrow. I said that I am not getting into this. There are still some groceries left and anyway, essentials will be available in the lockdown.
Suddenly entire nation were trapped in their rooms. Humans are social animals. But now we had to survive the social distancing. We felt trapped in our houses. We were lucky to be trapped. But some people still have to work so that we can survive being trapped in our houses. And please appreciate their efforts in absence of whom this pandemic could have been even more disastrous for us.
This lockdown has caused entire lifestyle changes in every person’s life.
Our room is our world now. We have to work from home, cook our food ourselves, workout in our rooms.. everything. Many a time, one’s mind may get filled with anxiety and depression due to the consistent confinement. In such a situation, it’s important to keep your nerves.
Talking of work, I too had to work. But it was work from home. All meetings and discussions will be on calls. On those calls, there would be work-related discussions. But there would be more… such as am I audible... Hey, your voice is breaking. The person on the other side will be like is it fine now… I am like how???, you did nothing, you just asked again is it fine. No, your voice is still breaking. But anyway, what more could you have done.
One good this lockdown has done is that now every person is a chef. And once this lockdown ends there is going to be a huge crowd at the MasterChef’s auditions. Everybody is cooking and posting pictures on social media. Some are watching tv series which they were planning to do for quite some time. Some got time to connect with their loved ones. Others are posting workout videos. I too was missing my workouts. So I made my own home workout plan. I decided that I’ll do multiples of 50’s daily. And it was like 50 pull-ups or 100 burpees or 200 squats or 300 push-ups. But this plan couldn’t last long and succumbed after 2 weeks to the covid induced lethargy. Later covid made me a writer and this is my first creation which I am posting after nearly a year because covid hasn’t ended yet and it made me a blogger this time. In the beginning, it was a little difficult to be in the room all the time. But people have got a little habituated. And it is a good thing not just for our well-being but also for the entire community.
Lockdown and corona thing has been very difficult for everyone. But there are some subtle positives associated with this lockdown. The most important of it is environmental regeneration. Constant and aggressive industrialization for years had caused so much degradation to the environment. But this small pause has caused nature to recover a little.
And though corona is lethal, but if you see the records, daily deaths in India have significantly reduced after the lockdown. On average in India, around 500 people used to die and 1300 used to get injured due to accidents every day before lockdown and the corona has avoided that now.
I am not saying that this corona and lockdown has been a good thing but rather than being depressed and despondent about it, we can look at the subtle positives and be a little sanguine. Humanity has fought and recovered from worse situations and pandemics and it’ll recuperate again.
