The virus has struck once more, and more cruelly in its mutant forms. Lockdowns are announced, and people who have found their feet and freedom for a short while need to withdraw into the confines of their homes. Or if they need to venture out, it should be in a guarded fashion, socially distanced, heavily masked, shielded and gloved. Every pandemic has a second wave but the writing on the wall was not read.
Many of those who have unfortunately been affected are dying in hospital compounds and homes without the availability of beds and medical oxygen, with doctors and medical staff at the breaking point. With the slow pace of vaccine roll-out and many receiving their shots also developing symptoms of the deadly virus, there is chaos and fear. Life has been an interminable queue from the hospital to the crematorium. Death has not been a dignified end to life but forever an ignominious memory when loved ones “die like disposables”. We were in a hurry to come out of the earlier lockdown with disastrous results for life and the economy, ushering in the second wave. Lockdowns have now become discretionary depending on the havoc created by the virus. Super-spreader events such as elections and religious gatherings were sanctioned, with thousands running the risk of infection and equitably distributing it across the country
Work from home for most office-goers is a compulsion, blurring the lines of home and office and impossible hours taking a toll on everyday lives. Gone are the days when one could saunter up to a colleague for friendly banter in the common room or at the water cooler. The familiar sight of friends trooping into a lift or crowding in the canteen was comforting. School and college students are on line trying to cope with their syllabuses and tests and their future. They miss the proximity of teachers, the camaraderie of classmates, a friendly game on the lawn, the sun on their faces, the wind in their hair. Since when has childhood become a lonesome affair without that human connection regardless of devices that proclaim they connect? Only strong relationships bind and make a connection.
In this pandemic, we should have a heart for the migrant labourer who is still haunted by the memory of last year’s lockdown, the courier boys, the delivery boys and the repair men who need to stand up whatever the odds, the frontline workers in offices, and the healthcare workers who are routinely exposed to the horrors of the virus. The prime existential question here is, where will this end? Are we waiting for the apocalypse that Conrad McCarthy has written about in his Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Road where civilisation has been wiped out by a disaster?
And yet there is the hope the human spirit will triumph in the end in spite of loss and grief with the faith that it has done its job regardless of the consequences. There are heart-warming stories of those reaching out to the suffering, the kindness of strangers, the resilience of community self-help and doctors on vigil round the clock. In the words of Albert Camus in his novel The Plague, “What’s true of all the evils of the world is true of a plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves.” We need to rise above the virus.
In the midst of hopelessness, Nature is raising its head, the trees are blooming with flowers nestling together, the skies are bluer and the earth is a carpet of leaves at your feet. There is something profound in the shy nameless bird on the branch. It is time for the caged bird to be set free and allowed to sing.
sudhadevi_nayak@yahoo.com
