COVID has brought life to a standstill

A famous song from a very popular Hindi movie “Shor” comes to my mind as I wake up to face another day under COVID lockdown. This song is written by famous Hindi poet Indrajeet Singh Tulsi, whose services Manoj Kumar especially enlisted. This song is-

“ Jeevan chalne ka naam

Chalte raho subah shaam”

The above is loosely translatable as that life is all about moving ahead.

In the current COVID related lockdown, everything is kind of moving. Being part of essential services, I was going to office till the other day and now technology has made it possible for me to work from home! I am working almost with the same output and outcome albeit with a little more effort. We are getting all essential supplies in our building – the daily requirement of fruits, vegetables, daily ration, medicines, milk etc. There’s enough connectivity with the world around – WhatsApp video calling with our daughter in Johannesburg and our sister in Singapore, messaging with friends and relatives, updates on COVID situation through round the clock TV news, e papers and internet and entertainment in abundance- cable TV, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube- you name it. Moreover, the family is together in this lockdown. The question is then what’s amiss? This is put in the following poem:

Walking under the blue sky

Going to neighbourhood cafe for a fish fry

Riding the bus, train or car to work

Instead of giving people a shirk

Meeting friends and chatting in reality

Instead of depending on the world of virtuality

Feeling the soft, tender skins of children with a gentle touch

Instead of craving for a distance to hold them in clutch

Exercising in the open air with gay abundabce

Rather than being confined indoors perchance

Going to place of faith to pay obeisance

Rather than praying at home daily in obedience

While at times this heart wanted to work from home in luxury

Having done so for weeks it now appears to be a great drudgery

Blue of sea, the green of nature and the free of birds are so enticing

Captivity due to lockdown, though must for us, is now distressing

As the above song says that another name for life is to move ahead

I pray to god that this standstill should not be any longer a dread!!

This is indeed something unseen and nothing seems to be coming to mind except looking up to someone sitting up there!