For many days now, all of us have been inundated with information on COVID-19. News from around the world is devastating and forecasts are grim. I have ventured out of home only once in the past four days and that too for just 15 minutes adhering to the physical distancing norms. Receiving this barrage of depressive information and predictions while staying home, wondering if we are taking the right precautions and if our friends and families are safe and thinking of all the work getting postponed, is playing tricks on my mind.
Taking a long view of the pandemic fight
Reaching the point of “information saturation”, I decided on Ugadi morning to just greet my family and friends and stay away from all viral news and updates for a while. The Telugu New Year celebration in our house was curtailed to just sending and receiving greetings. No Ugadi chutney, vada, tamarind rice or payasam. I decided to start off the New Year on a better note, not with more disturbing news. So, I went to the balcony and stared at the roads for a few minutes. Not a single soul nor a polluting vehicle went by. No calls from the vegetable hawkers or the sofa repair guys with their blaring messages on speakers. Absolute quiet. Just the cawing of crows and cooing of pigeons and an occasional eagle in the skies.
Calm as ever
I then went over to our living room with a hot cup of lemon tea that they say is good for your throat. Sat down and watched the hazy skies and mountains afar from the comfort of my sofa, and they seemed to be calm just as they have been for ever. But today, the city too has joined them in their stillness and silence.
Not a sound from anywhere. Just eerily quiet. Visakhapatnam, known as the “Steel City”, has transformed into a “still city”. Determined to stay away from electronic, print and social media, I then went over to our rooftop garden and walked amid the flowers and fruits my wife has been growing. Didn’t realise she had grown such a variety. I discovered the soothing fragrances of the flowers and their pleasing colours. I sat in the shade with a gentle cool morning breeze. No sounds from anywhere except from the wind chimes swaying in the garden. I should spend more time in the garden, I thought.
The natural surroundings are soothing, but the silence is “deafening”. I kept thinking how much we have got used to the noise and chaos we create and how far we have got from peace and tranquillity that once surrounded us, and how this new experience of lockdown of just a few days is choking us.
But I am glad that this has been thrust upon us; else we would never have been able to experience this.
And I hope this experience will be frozen in our minds and that every once in a while, we will long for and practice this “emptiness” to cleanse our cluttered lifestyles, minds and souls.
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