I am spending the Corona season being insensitive. This will not come as a surprise for many who think they know me. They would be shocked if I uttered something like "it is sad that humanity has to go through such misery and worry". To avoid such shocks I don't utter "it is sad that humanity has to go through such misery and worry" instead I try to amuse them with "Corona Coranjillallo", "Corona Coranja Collam" and "Corona Coraikudi Coodi". To my utter dismay people have ignored my attempts at amusing them. Now that I am not working from home, I have enough time to sit in a corner and ponder on the cause of this ignorance on the of the part around. I held a cup of black coffee in my hand as I pondered. For some time, I did not hold any cup in my hand as I pondered. Finally, I held a cup of tea as I pondered. I am glad that I found the cause; causes actually for there are two.
1. People cannot stop thinking about Corona and this has reduced the ability to think about anything else. Even if a car runs over them, they would get up dust themselves clean and walk away. This would sound like an exaggeration for some but I am not making this up. Since Corona went pandemic no one's dying of any other causes. I went through the newspapers and watched many of the news channels. But everywhere its 10, 100 or 300 dying due to the virus and nothing else. Isn't that good enough to shock people out of their wits!
NOTE: The above statement is not entirely factual or actual. The deaths of Kenny Rogers, Uderzo, Satish Gujral and Dr. Sethu are not attributed to the virus. But I am ignoring these anomalies.
2. My words were said in chaste Malayalam, which people are unable to understand.
I am disappointed by the Corona virus. The world has been prostrating in front of the virus and begging it to leave us alone. But I am not begging instead I would like to inform the virus to get to me early or give me the skip entirely. During the initial days of the pandemic, every patient is known - not by their name but by their number. The television anchor informs us about each of the early patients by screaming into the camera "Today yet another person was found affected by the virus. This is the fifth person from the city and he hails from the xyz area of the city". Every news channel and newspaper in the country (and possibly the world) will talk about this patient on that day and if he/she is lucky or unlucky on the following days too. The person will be etched in many minds across the globe as patient number five from xyz city. But as the pandemic spreads, the number of cases increases and one ends up being one among 12,394 patients from the city. So if I have to afflicted by the virus, its better be one of the first in the country or at least the state. It is now too late to have that distinction. So I am disappointed with this virus and I humbly request the virus to prance around me.
I have another reason to be disappointment by this virus - its name. First they called it Corona virus. Many memes followed; the most popular being Corona beer manufacturers wanting to change the name of the virus to Budweiser virus. Within a few days, I got to understand that the Corona virus has been residing within us for many centuries. One version of the common flu is a result of this virus. I realized that Corona virus is not very different from dogs; the virus too had its own versions of German Shepherd and Labrador. The virus that is currently terrorizing the world is a new born cousin of the good old Corona virus and has been christened Novel Corona Virus. Novel Corona virus sounds like the name of a fancy store. I don't like it! To make things worse at some point Novel Corona virus gave way for COVID-19. It sounds like the name of a pill for diabetes or blood pressure and not of a virus. With a name like that someone will actually consume it rather than keep away from it. I am not sure what COVID stands for but I guess that Co stands for Corona and Vi stands for Virus. I have no idea what the D and 19 stands for and I am in no mood to ascertain its expansion. Thus my impression about the virus is not great though it has been creating tsunami sized ripples around the world. But, as I mentioned earlier, the world thinks otherwise.
As soon as the virus landed on our laps, everyone started sending videos and memes to each other over WhatsApp about the virus. Over the past few days, I have received more videos than I have in my entire life. People have been advising, coaxing, threatening, mocking and begging through these messages. For reasons beyond my comprehension, I have studied all these videos and memes and have come to the conclusion that no one has any idea about the virus. But the videos have kept me occupied and I have understood the following from them.
1. The virus and its spread were predicted in various books from 1990 to 2010. Some books have explicitly said that the virus will spread from Wuhan. I am surprised that no one has brought Nostradamus' name into the scene yet. I think Nostradamus' fame ended at the turn of the century. Today's video and meme creators would scratch their heads and ask "Isn’t Nostradamus the name of the Church in Paris that went up in flames recently?". "Yes, yes! Same one! Did you not know that predictions about COVID 19 were written within the Church?"
2. One of the forwards attempted to highlight the total ignorance of today's medical system. The message had a picture of a page of a medical book from 1970 something or 1980 something. It claimed that Corona virus can be cured through the use of Asprin and such drugs. The forward expressed shock that today’s doctors are struggling to cure this ailment though the world has been aware of the virus and its cure for many years. Apparently, the poor fellows did not realize that this Corona virus is Novel Corona virus and not the Corona virus that has always been in our neighbourhood as the cause of the common cold and flu.
3. During one of the meetings, I met a lady who said her husband was in self-quarantine as he had come back from abroad recently. Had I been Peter Parker, my spider sense might have tingled on hearing these words. But I am not Peter Parker and so all I felt was mild discomfort (at this point, lockdown was two weeks away and so the feeling of discomfort was still mild). She was sitting on the other side of a large round table. She did not cough or sneeze through the meeting and we did not shake hands at the beginning or end of the meeting. I also took care to not touch the table till it was cleaned with soap solution. So I walked out of the meeting confident that Novel Corona could not have entered my insides. But I was not sure! Two days later a message landed in one of the WhatsApp group that could assuage my discomfort. It said hold your breath for 10 seconds. If you are able to do it without gasping for breath, the virus is not in you. A large part of my brain screamed "Nonsense" but I decided to ignore the scream and held my breath for fifteen seconds three or four times a day. At most times, I was happy with the result but a few times I was not sure what breathlessness meant. But overall I found the process and its results satisfying. Of course, I saw a post ultimately on Bored Panda that called this diagnostic process a myth. I thought it did so poetically . Many of the aged would find it difficult to hold their breath for ten seconds anyway whereas many of the young would anyway find it easy to hold their breath for ten second. Thus holding one’s breath neither confirms nor disconfirms anything.
4. This was also the time for patriots to raise their heads and remind others about the greatness of our culture. Though I have not seen any messages claiming that Sushrutha or Charaka had already written a cure for this ailment, I feel such messages would be in circulation on some network. However, I have seen messages that claim that concoctions containing turmeric and pepper have the ability to keep the virus at bay. Such messages usually go on to mention that
rasam is the greatest gift from India to mankind. Another message claimed that lemon juice with hot water makes this novel virus scream with agony. I closed my eyes and imagined the virus rubbing its small eyes, burning due to the citric acid in lemon, with its many small red hands / legs. I decided to have this concoction at once. I walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator's door to take out a lemon but was distracted by the bar of chocolate that lay besides it. Thankfully, the Bored Panda article shot down this remedy too as a myth.
5. A message asked people to drink plenty of water as this will help wash down the virus down to the stomach where acids would burn the virus to its gory end. I did not trust this message for it resembled the climax of many Bollywood and Hollywood movies. The doctor's article on Bored Panda shot this one too as a myth. He said the virus will enter the human cells soon after contact and so you cannot wash them down to stomach.
While the world was exchanging messages casually over WhatsApp, the virus decided to change gears and soon it was everywhere. People were getting affected by the thousands and many were dying too. It was no longer somebody else's problem for it was on our door steps. Every time someone coughed, sneezed or even sniffled, everyone looked at the person suspiciously. The hysteria rose a rung when the schools closed in many states and hundreds of Italians started dying every day. The number of patients started rising in India and the various groups on WhatsApp went hyper. The number of forwards per days competed with the number of people dying every day. My fingers switched constantly between the Times of India, WhatsApp and Facebook applications on my mobile. I was finding it difficult to keep track of the Novel Corona's deadly spread. Has it reached any closer? How can one decipher if one is infected? What will happen to my parents? What will happen to my family? Will I turn me into a zombie? Such worrying questions ran through my mind. Obviously no one in their right sense could provide satisfactory responses and so I turned to astrology. A forward on WhatsApp showed an astrologer prophesying on some Malayalam channel about the world going through a deadly ailment during March and April of 2020. He said reassuringly that India will not be affected much. Behind him someone had added the date the programme was recorded, April 2019. I heaved a sigh of relief; we are safe.
The Governments did not want the virus to spread within the close confines of the school. Many states closed down the school. In Tamilnadu, on a Saturday the Government announced the closure of the kindergartens all over the state. By Sunday morning, the order was drawn back. Sunday evening, the Government announced that the school should close for students in kindergarten and classes 1 to 5. By Monday evening, all the school students had to be away from the school. But staying away from school did not mean that the children were in quarantine. They spent their days playing with their friends. The pandemic was still many miles away and not many were worried. There were a few exceptions though. I saw a boy walking alone in my apartment complex. For some reason I walked up to him and asked "So you are enjoying the holidays is it?" He took a few steps back and looked at me with suspiciously. He said "I have not gone to the school for past two weeks". I was surprised "Two weeks! But the schools have only been closed for the past week". "Yeah" he responded callously "I did not want to die of this disease and so did not go to the school".
The Novel Corona being a virus does not have a cure. Our body’s immune system has to rise to the occasion and fight it. So many in the medical community were trying to understand the virus and develop a vaccine. But a few mavericks did not have faith on Western medicine. In fact, they did not have faith in any form of medicine. One evening, I found a man who looked like a monk talking animatedly to a reporter on the television. Over the years, I have learnt that not all Indians with clean shaven head wearing ochre coloured attire are monks. Though a few of them turn out to be one, they are usually not found talking to television reporters. The ones on televisions are either business men or chief ministers or ministers or politicians or fanatics or, as is usually the case, all of the above. The man held a glass of something in his hand and was talking about it. I listened and realized that he was talking about the use of cow's urine to cure Novel Corona virus. The virus has not reduced the Indian obsession with the cows. One set of people consider the cow sacred. Interestingly, this set considers everything that comes out of the cow, namely, urine, milk and dung, sacred and good for our constitution. At the other end of the spectrum are people who consider the cow tasty. Somewhere in the middle exists a group who neither find the cow tasty nor find the cow and its by-products sacred. In the 20th century, the Westerners thought of our country as the land with cows living on the road. But now, our country has become a land with cows living inside people’s heads. The doctor on Bored Panda pooh-poohed the cow urine theory too.
The Prime Minister decided to address the nation at '
aat baje'. As is usually the case, he talked passionately and mesmerized many of his fellow citizens with his words. During his talk he placed two requests to his fellow citizens. He referred to his first request as
Janata curfew. He requested people to stay indoors from 7 am to 9 pm on Sunday. He wanted people to maintain social distance in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus. In the second request, the Prime Minister wanted his fellow citizens to go to their balconies at 5 pm on Sunday and show their gratitude by clapping their hands for the doctors, nurses and other people in the medical field, who were working tirelessly for their safety. On the face of it, the request seemed thoughtful but there were a couple of underlying issues. First, people of Italy and Spain had already done this and this seemed like an attempt at copying their actions. In Europe, the movement was almost spontaneous for it started from a post on the social. In our case, the Prime Minister of the country is driving this. This seems like an exercise - a mechanism to raise the fervour of the nation. This seems like a brilliant populist move but it will be tough to raise the morale of the beleaguered medical personnel of our country. There was a second problem with this request, which came to the fore on the day of the
Janata curfew.
The
Janata curfew was a huge success. Most people stayed indoors. A few who ventured outside were chased back home by the police. The people who hated the Government cried foul and sent videos showing the police beating people who were not observing the curfew. They claimed that the Janata curfew should be voluntary and the police and the Government cannot force the citizens to sit inside their homes. In our country, the haters hated the Government passionately and the lovers loved the Government blindly. Every day the two sides sent nasty memes and messages about each other.
At 4:55 pm, I decided to take bath. As the water from the shower flowed from my head to toe, I was surrounded by the sounds of clapping, whistling, ringing of bells and the clanging of the spoons against plates. Many, in my apartment, decided to show their gratitude to the doctors and nurses as the Prime Minister had requested. I couldn't. I was never good at the public display of patriotism. As a matter of fact, I am not even sure if I am patriotic. Anyway I neither believed this to be an act of patriotism nor an act of displaying gratitude. This only seems like an act of adoration – adoration of the people towards their beloved leader. This, by itself, is not a problem. The problem is when the lovers call the people who do not take part in the exercise as heartless or unpatriotic or some such rot.
The show gratitude turned out to be a mess though it was considered a success by many. Some people had predicted soon after the Prime Minister placed this request that our people being our people would end up making the event a celebration. That is precisely what it turned out to be. Hundreds of people congregated in the streets and indulged in unnecessary celebrations. The 10 hours of social distancing was thrown into the air and the virus was given a good opportunity to jump from one person to another. To be fair, the Prime Minister did not ask the people to come down to the streets. He had asked them to express their gratitude from their balconies. But our people being our people only listened to the words 5 pm, clap and gratitude. Thus chaos ensued. The cynics shook their head in disgust and tch-tch-ed on social media.
Two days later,
aat baje happened again. This time, the Prime Minister announced a complete shutdown of the country for twenty one days. Twenty one days! Three weeks! No one can get out of their house. Everyone stays inside with each other for three weeks! It was unbelievable. People called each other and cried in protest. Many ran to the shops to buy things that they might not need. The very people who had laughed at the westerners for stockpiling many rolls of toilet papers were now standing in long lines with a basket full of green chillies.
As I end the second day of the lock down I decide to end this introduction to Corona days. I will spend another day or two reading through this mess again (and maybe again). In the past when I broke down the writing about an incident, I usually ended up with three parts. I hope this one too does not proceed beyond the third part.
