Dear
Humanity,
Big
things start small! It all started with a whispering rumour and then it took
the shape gradually of a news coverage of a sensation amounting to an
international conspiracy, to wage a biological war against You! Humanity, the
fragile and formidable You, to annihilate You – a virus named Covid-19 was the
latest of the onslaughts on You – on Your desire for an ordered universe in a
fragmented, wounded and despiritualised waste land that talks of clash of
civilizations and end of history and the last ‘human.’
The
government communique started circulating rules and regulations for a lockdown
period. Press releases, broadcasts and advisories from the presidents and
ministers of the mortals and friendly precautions and warnings gradually turned
into strict administrative control of the movement of people and commodity.
Social and cultural distancing now were seen to be ‘new normal.’ Love thy neighbour from a safe distance,
masked miens and safely sanitized hands were preferred, rather had become and
still are the elitist (with ethnic and designer masks!) routine of the
civilized lot. In the densely populated
ghettos of the modern world and the rural population (particularly in Indian
Subcontinent) people follow the ‘normal’ routine of their lives. Like chicken-pox, tuberculosis and other once
considered dreaded diseases people seem to have started an ambivalent attitude
towards the new frenemy, Covid-19.
Soon
national emergency was declared. Curfew was imposed. April turned out to be the
‘cruellest’ month, beginning of an interminable period of trepidation, distress
and doubt. The lockdown period was very
stressful in the beginning. we were not used to get our things done within a
restricted period of time, for example, a transaction in the Bank, booking an
appointment at a Doctor’s or routine things like buying vegetables and
provisions. Gradually, we got ourselves
adjusted to the new routine for ours and society’s well-being. Friends and relatives called and narrated
their experiences with the data of people hospitalised and dying in India and
abroad of this mysterious Covid-19 virus.
Some people took it lightly and some very seriously. People who believed
in the efficacy of alternate medicine like those of traditional and herbal
time-tested remedies put forth their ideas and social sites turned out to be a
Babel of voices for such suggestions for keeping one away from the Covid-19
virus, increasing the anxiety and dread of the global pandemic with the news
of death of so many on the glocal
scene. We preferred to stay indoors to
stay safe and to save You, Humanity! Slowly the fear resulted from the lockdown
restrictions from without has started affecting the inner world, moving from
the physical to the psychological worlds affecting society, family, education,
living and work in a way that was unprecedented.
Generally speaking, in any kind of misfortune
like this people think of family first. My thoughts turned towards keeping my
family away from the contact of the ubiquitous feared virus Covid-19. I looked at the timings when Banks and
markets were scheduled to be open and rushed there to buy provisions and
medicine and masks and sanitizer.
Usually, I had the experience of living in Yemen and Libya during the
time of political unrest in those countries and I witnessed people taking
recourse to hoarding provisions and the merchants increasing the prices of
commodities exorbitantly. I was wary of that situation. But in India in general and in Patna (my
present place of relocation after I came to India after having spent about
three decades of working abroad in
various countries of the Middle East) in particular I saw the
governmental machinery and the people
empathetic to each other except for some sporadic instances of police
excesses to restore law and order during
grey and grim times that was looming large before all of us. The people who we think of as the part of a
governmental machinery were also human beings with their families harbouring
forebodings staying and praying from home for their safe return from work. An undefined feeling started creeping in the
heart as I drove out into the deserted streets of Patna for buying provisions
and medicine, the lines from Philip Larkin’s “Ambulances” reverberated in my
entire being and I “sense[ed] the solving
emptiness/That lies just under all we do!”
My
15-year daughter studies in 10th standard, the closure of her school
was like snatching away from her the new electronic gadget that was given to
her recently to enjoy. Along with
studies, she used to have several activities at the school, above all the
thought that she would not meet her peer group for a long time made her feel
sad and disappointed. The talk of
conducting online classes was in the air on the local and the national levels.
It was a new experience. Not all were familiar with the digital class
management. Besides, despite the digital revolution, there exists a Digital
Divide due to lack of Internet facilities in the remote rural areas. And those who were familiar with the new
technique were not conducting online classes regularly, it was something new
and necessary now to be done in the interest of the educational institutions
and their beneficiaries. Gradually, people had come to realise with the feeling
of unexplained unease that it has been the worst year for students.
Amidst
this situation I received a WhatsApp invitation from my daughter’s school to
attend a meeting on ‘Zoom.’ First, I
thought it was a parents’ meeting but to my surprise it was a staff meeting to
find out ways and means to deal with the extraordinary situation. I was
requested to teach English language and literature in some classes at the
school as the teacher concerned was stationed at his native place and the
chances of his return were naught. He went to his native place and he was quarantined
for fourteen days, in the meantime a strict lockdown was imposed and in absence
of transport facilities he stayed put there. Moreover, he was over sixty-five
years old and the people of that age group were instructed not to go out as
they were vulnerable to Covid-19 virus contagion. I accepted to handle the
classes. I was to teach from home. It was a blessing in disguise for me.
But
for my daughter and innumerable students like her (as per UNICEF estimate 1.57
billion students have been affected due to school closure in more than 190
countries worldwide) shifting from offline to online, from physical to virtual
classroom was sudden and shocking. Like
the teachers who were not technically conversant and harboured a kind of deep
doubt and apathy, students too did not have any clarity about this new
system. My daughter like Margie in Isaac
Asimov’s story “The Fun They Had” (it is in her syllabus) thought that the new
virtual class would be taught by robots and the school would soon become a
thing of the past.
Teaching
online on Zoom was a new experience to me too. Though while working at a
University in K. S. A. I was trained to use Blackboard Collaborate; it was an
altogether different context. In the
beginning students were enthusiastic but parents were wary of the newfound
freedom of their children with android phones.
Things moved on with the persuasion of parents and the pieces of advice
given to students and teachers from time to time. I had an opportunity to read
and teach some of the finest poems, classic stories and one -act plays like
“Dust of Snow”, “The Road Not Taken”, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”. “The Necklace”, “The Happy Prince” , “The
Last Leaf” and “The Marriage Proposal” respectively. During the lockdown period of ‘home alone’ I
felt that we were not alone as we started new negotiations to enhance the bond
between pen and pandemic with a new dimension: the digital dimension. Of
course, it had and still has a constant refrain of “Sir, when shall our school
reopen?”
Then was added to this dimension webinars,
live sessions on the social sites and several other things that chanted hymns
of revival of the indomitable will of survival in the
face of death and destruction; the historical memories of the first true
pandemic of the outbreak of Cholera in 1832 was revived too as a parallel for
the latent human potential that waits for such trying times to pop up its brave
face! I attended several webinars and gave one or two too to be in the fray. In
India, my country, I naturally acquired the status of a senior citizen two
years ago. By the Almighty’s grace I am still active and always persuade myself
to keep a positive outlook even in the face of the most unsettling of
challenges. My wife has been a
co-warrior fighting by my side during all the thick and thin of life. Even
today when her health is under the threat of gradual deterioration due to
Osteoarthritis and, during the dark times dawned upon by Covid-19 virus when “we are here as on a darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of
struggle and flight”, she has shown unparalleled grit and determination. One
formidable weapon we have wielded against the Covid-19 virus and the bleak
atmosphere created by it is the weapon of keeping ourselves meaningfully
engaged. Our daughter revived her
long-forgotten blog. My wife and I apart from reading books and writing for
self-satisfaction enrolled ourselves in online classes to learn Sanskrit, our
long-lost desire which was there flowing like an antecedent stream in a desert.
In
order to “devour” Time before it devours us, we tried our hands at making
drawings, watching films, playing the piano, the Ludo, the Carom and playing
more with our pet, the beautiful and loving Pomeranian, Crystal. Amidst all these developments, there was a piece
of news that made us happy and worried about her that she was in the family
way! So, taking her for a walk was compulsory. She walked on the road until the
morning of her D-Day and what was interesting that she, as her wont, continued
to challenge her canine friends whenever she ran into them. At 3 pm I drove to
a chemist to buy some medicine and I received a call from my wife that Crystal
was moaning. I rushed back to my apartment and Lo and behold! I found Crystal
with a tiny red thing near her hind legs. I immediately called her caretaker in
panic. He told me to keep calm and came to my apartment after a few minutes. He
helped Crystal deliver three puppies and it was 6 pm, the time for the lockdown
period to be imposed. He explained certain procedures about how to deliver the
rest of the puppies as he guessed that there would be at least four more to be
delivered and taken care of. I was to
play the midwife! And I was not sure of myself without any training to hold
life in my palm; causing death and havoc does not require any training!
Humanity you are the only and lonely witness to this downhearted fact of the
world! I helped Crystal deliver four more puppies one after the other, taking
the life out of the membrane, cutting the umbilical cord with a new razor,
disinfecting the cutting ends with Dettol, tying them with thread and wiping
their bodies with fresh tissue paper and then life is alive and kicking hungry
for the mother’s milk! Our daughter assisted me and she opened their tiny mouth
taking her to their mother, eyeless they knew the places from where they would
get the life-sustaining milk – the first drop of sap that only a mother
provides! My wife was watching the entire scene with unbelievable expression on
her face. To me this incident was symbolic of the hidden potential of the
recent pandemic caused by Covid-19 virus. It is still ‘a riddle wrapped in a
mystery’ which only Time will unravel!
The impact of Covid-19
pandemic has been sudden and severe in the economic and social spheres globally. The pandemic has taken toll on those who earn
their livelihoods living far away from home particularly outside their
countries. It has added a new conflicting dimension to the negotiations of home
and exile. People are still there in
their host countries as work diaspora, trying to save their jobs without
thinking of coming home in the absence of regular flights or in some countries,
the flights have been cancelled sine die. Inside the countries like India the
massive migration of daily-waged migrant workers back home after the outbreak
of the pandemic in the months of March and April 2020 was reminiscent of mass
exodus of people that took place during the Holocaust!
Dear Humanity, despite
all the vicissitude we have suffered, we still have faith in you. Human beings
have been blessed prisoners of hope. We need to go back to Nature! We need to
vitally and ‘virtually’ ‘reconnect’ with our work and people, particularly with
our fellow beings and loved ones. We need to stand still for some time for a better
hindsight. We should keep a healthy lifestyle and better hygiene. We should accept the seamless structures of
digital classrooms and virtual office spaces that have connected ourselves with
our homes in unique ways of remote working and learning. Once again, distances
are no longer challenging and the kaleidoscopic change is going to show (I am
quite hopeful!) the other side of the
paradise of Marshal McLuhan’s concept of a “Global Village.” Until that time, in
our sheltered existence, with so many sentiments which remained unexpressed
that made our loneliness a defining tool during the difficult times as we
suffer silently thinking of our presentiment, our future and the future of the
generations to come, let the present be a:
“Balm of the summer night, balm of the
ordinary,
imperial joy and sorrow of human existence,
the dreamed as well as the lived—
what could be dearer than this, given the
closeness of death?”
― The Seven Ages
Anil Kumar Prasad, Ph.D.,
Formerly Professor of English,
Nageshwar
Colony, Patna, India
