Have just come across a Pakistani channel clip doing rounds on social media in which noted Pakistani journalist Hasan Nissar is being interviewed by a TV anchor. To a question posed to Nissar that as per the Forbes magazine, in this current Coronavirus pandemic, more than 226 billionaires have lost a significant part of their wealth, the response by Nissar forms a quotable quote:

“ How does it matter whether 226 or 2260 or a few thousands of billionaires have become poorer? Nothing will happen if all these billionaires, landlords, bureaucrats, politicians, artists, anchors and all others “so called” important people are to overnight vanish into thin air? It will not make any difference and the world will evolve soon with new people fitting into the slots vacated by these important people!” However, the next part of his response is even more penetrating. He goes on to say, “ however, if barbers, cobblers, domestic helps, public transport drivers, milkmen, vendors of daily household goods and above all, farmers are to be affected, this world is going to be be under siege and incapable of surviving beyond 15 days.”

It’s a stark truth that all of us noisemakers, who are living in utmost comforts and luxuries of our homes, eating the best of food and having access to all amenities during this COVID lockdown do not matter at all! The real sufferers , who as per Nissar “ whet their appetite by hunger and thirst by frugality” , are the ones who are important and actually are “Corona warriors” .

As Nissar says, “ the wealth hoarders and scamsters earn sobriquet of Sahab, Janab, Seth, sir etc, while those doing menial yet hard jobs, who deserve our best respect, are looked down upon by us”. While Nissar’s disenchantment with this class of people is understandable, in India, we have come across the instances of generosity of several of these wealthy people- Akshay, Ratan Tata, Azim Premji , Sachin, Gavaskar, Film stars ( for entire film world fraternity), Prabhas, Mukesh Ambani- the list is quite long- who have stood by the nation and it’s people in this difficult times. But Nissar’s views clearly bring out the order of importance in the society!

At the end, I will like to mention a similar thought that I came across yesterday, where a speaker, an eminent medical practitioner with holistic approach says that the two things after which all of us run but which in reality are lifeless are- Position and possession! This Coronavirus has established the above truth conclusively that when faced with such pandemic that’s a great leveller, the things that matters least are one’s position and possession. These don’t rescue us from lockdown nor give us any additional immunity from Coronavirus. But those who are coming to our rescue are the Corona warriors – our sabzi and milk wala, BEST staff, Clean Up Mumbai staff, medical workers, police , bankers – the faceless, untitled heroes deserving our unfettered respect!

COVID19 pandemic is something which the world has not seen or experienced before in the living memory of the current generation. However, there are two sides of each aspect and while on one hand there’s news around lockdown, suffering and deaths, there’s also some wit around the work from home (WFH), especially by menfolk!

Unlike several international giant IT firms more specifically Apple, Google, Microsoft which are epitome of flexible work culture, including WFH, in India, this practice has not really taken roots, till Corona lockdown has brought about a radical change. Apart from IT professionals, bankers, bureaucrats, consultants, chartered accountants have all taken to WFH in a big way.

However, we are celebrating the role of Police – always known to be a saviour in normal times , now enforcing lockdown, sealing hot spots, helping medical fraternity in doing their duty and dealing with rogues breaking the rules of lockdown and social distancing. It gives me shudders to think if they were to work from home! Ditto doctors, though non Corona patients they are consulting doctors virtually over video calling.

BEST is providing local transport and electricity, both essential services. Poor chaps have no option to WFH. Clean up Mumbai removes our garbage daily and maintain hygiene of our city. Milkman delivering morning milk, persons providing daily bread, eggs, vegetables and other necessary provisions, local chemist and druggist and above all the soldier guarding our fronts and protecting us from enemies. Can we ever imagine all these doing WFH?

As the title of this blog is lighter side of this serious situation, let me narrate the incident on the eve of lockdown! I told my wife that our domestic help has decided to WFH and daily at 9 AM, she will be making a video call guiding us on bartan, jhadu and pocha, so that we don’t leave any nook of the house dirty or any utensil not cleaned properly!

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!

The period just gone by was full of festivals. There were Navratris, Ram Navami, Hanuman Jayanti, Mahavir Jayanti, Gudi Padawa, Shab e barat, Easter, Baisakhi, Poila Baisakh, Bihu etc. Usually, festivals and traditions relating to them are my favourite blogging themes. However, for the past sometime, no creative or happy idea is coming to my mind other than this global pandemic called COVID 19. As the situation worsens, count of affected persons goes up, deaths mount and lockdown gets extended, the fear of this pandemic is only increasing.

The mind wonders how and when will it end or whether it will end at all and take the entire humanity with it? Will Indian summers prove to be virus’s Waterloo? Is the world close to finding its cure? Is vaccine in the offing that will provide us with the immunity against COVID?

Overcrowded Indian cities are struggling to enforce social distancing. Overworked police is being tested by rogues of all kinds. People belonging to medical fraternity are being mistreated. Certain areas are facing shortage of essential items.

Government and administration are trying their best. Rabi crops are ready for harvesting. Factories producing certain essential items need to be started. Stranded daily earners are required to be fed so that they don’t starve. All these challenges are being met.

This is the hour for the country to unite and strengthen the hands of the government and local administration in defeating this pandemic.

If good times didn’t last,

Soon this will also be past;

When 137 crore Indians pool their strength,

Corona has no option but to run away fast!!!

We all await this Diwali that we will celebrate upon the return of our warriors after slaying this Corona demon.

Today is Easter, one of the holiest days in Christianity. It marks the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his burial and crucifixion on Good Friday.

The springtime festival marks the end of 40 days period of lent and spring heralds the end of gloomy and harsh winters. The resurrection of Jesus brings hope and joy, the two most sought after elements in the current Corona pandemic that has gripped the entire world. There will be no masses and no egg hunts, because all places of worship are closed and congregations are banned due to currently prevalent Corona contagion.

However, I just came across a beautiful poem that once again stresses on the strength of faith in these difficult times and concludes that while festivities associated with holy days are important and have historic significance, God almighty is present there in our hearts and no one needs to risk his or her life by seeking his presence in a place of worship, if the requirement is to stay inside in this lockdown . Two lines from this poem that capture the essence of the current Corona pandemic beautifully are:

The churches are empty – but so is the tomb,

And Jesus is victor over death, doom, and gloom.

Jesus lives in our hearts and while the advent of Easter gives us hope for a bright future bereft of this pandemic, his abode in our hearts ensure that we stay home safe and celebrate Easter with all the goodies and family members.

Hope with the springtime, winter will transit into summer and severe heat will kill Coronavirus to make this beautiful planet liveable again, allowing the mankind to celebrate life and all the festivals!

More than 150 years after the above poem was written, we immediately connect to its contents. Earth needed to heal even then when there was no industrialisation, no automobiles, no greenhouse effect, large green cover and no global warming whatsoever. The challenges of lockdown inside were similar, if not more severe, because while the one could read, exercise, meditate but social media, DTH, cable TV, video calling were not known or at least a century away! Imagine the intensity of our condition under the current lockdown if were to be deprived of WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, Amazon, You Tube, Swiggy, Zomato, Star Bazar !

Even at the cost of sounding Panglossian, I must say we are so lucky to be locked down in today’s times than in 1869! Let’s cooperate and comply fully with lockdown and social distancing and send Corona virus away !

When we talk about Corona, we discuss it’s widespread impact, deaths, lockdown, hand hygiene and once in a lifetime happening! While many of us feel that life will not be same post Corona, we are still not sure how will it shape up? Knowing human tendency and memory, which is very short lived, I fear that after a few days, it will be back to the square one! Therefore, I thought let me put my thoughts that I am currently going through in poetry on what I will do and what I won’t, should I be one of those lucky few to survive this Corona pandemic in tact, because while the extreme outcome is death, job losses, business failures, economic breakdown, social tensions could also impact and be hard to overcome for several of us!

My poem reads:

Oh Corona!

Who knows as to how

And when this COVID will subside?

But I have a plan to live my life

Differently if at all I survive.

I will –

Wake up and thank God

Respected my body and go whole hog;

Enjoy that morning cup of tea

Without rushing unnecessarily ;

Work in office like there’s no tomorrow

Without postponing things on the morrow;

Return home to be with family

And cherish every little bonhomie ;

Read, read and read a lot

To expand my horizon from a dot;

Call up my old mother every day

Instead of pretending I am busy as a bee;

Love and check welfare of my neighbours

Which hitherto appeared to be quite a labour ;

Love small small things that I took for granted

And have a tree at least once in a while planted!

And I will not-

Waste water or food

Deprive anyone of his livelihood ;

Indulge in excesses and abuse my body

Hurt the sentiments or feelings of anybody;

Open my heart and vault to the needy and poor

Never disappoint anyone coming to my door;

Still go to place of worship and follow my faith

But respect the medical fraternity for we need more of their trait;

Cherish every moment as the best and go and have a dive

Instead of living in misery waiting for that moment to arrive;

Because I have now understood and it’s amply clear

Life is fragile and uncertain till next round of Corona hits us drear!

The End

Let’s observe lockdown and social distancing for some more time and hand and personal hygiene forever and hope that this menace goes away without causing further misery to the mankind.

1st April apart from being a fools’ day also heralds the start of new financial year. May be it’s a sheer coincidence that economists, who are known more for fooling the common folks with jargons and statistics, chose the fool’s day to be the start of the financial year!

On a serious note, this financial year has definitely started on a very sombre note with industries completely shut, stock markets bleeding at all time low and spirits sagging like never seen before. On top of it, in spite of sincere efforts by the Government to prevent spread of Corona virus by declaring a 3 weeks lockdown, the situation seems to be deteriorating. It’s partly attributable to circumstances- daily earners fleeing en masse major cities like Mumbai and Delhi to their hometowns to avoid death due to starvation; partly due to foolishness – ramblers just roaming around for the heck of it ignoring lockdown and above all sheer defiance – yesterday’s religious congregation in Delhi that’s suddenly led to eruption and spread of pandemic all over the country. This is really sad that people are making mockery of a very very serious ground reality staring at our faces.

As someone observed, given the choice he’d like to delete the calendar year 2020 from the annals of the history. And someone else remarked, he wished that the year 2020 could be rewinded to 1st January to start it afresh. However, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride! We can also wish that entire Corona was a April Fool joke. But, we all know that time once gone by never comes back. However, we can wish and pray that financial year in front of us retrieves some of the lost ground so that calendar year 2020 is not totally washed out to go down as the worst ever year in the recallable history of the civilised world!

Go Corona go

India has no place for you

We are simple god fearing people

Such a severe punishment will not do

These terms were unheard of or were at least not oft heard hitherto:

(1) Janta curfew- In our lifetimes, we have at least heard if not experienced first hand, curfews that are marked by deserted streets and intense patrolling. But Janta curfew, meaning curfew imposed by public on themselves voluntarily has not been heard or seen before. It’s about self restraint and self discipline.

(2) Lockdown – We must have heard and seen lockouts, but lockdown? It’s an eerie feeling and scene, observing a lively city like Mumbai completely shutdown and coming to a standstill!

(3) Social distancing – Man is a social animal and he likes to socialise! What’s social distancing? Neither heard of nor experienced heretofore and is an absolutely novel thing for everyone! Socially connected, yet distanced!

(4) Quarantine- Not that this term didn’t exist or wasn’t heard before, but it was more in the context of hospitalisation and sickness! To quarantine absolutely healthy individuals just because of their travel history is an absolute novelty!

(5) Corona – I always thought that this was a new virus strain, unheard of or unseen before; ironically, there was a post doing round in social media carrying an extract of an NCERT text book. Published several years ago, it has a mention of Corona virus, it’s symptoms and possible cure! Quite eerie so to say!

These terms apart, the total shutdown of bus, rail and air services is absolutely unseen hitherto before. There is already new slangs finding way into our day to day conversation. As someone wrote that Prince Charles has ultimately got “coronated”! Wry humour, but captures the sombre mood of the present times!

Let’s see by the time this malaise bids us adieu what new suffering and learning will wreak it on the mankind?

There are few moments in life that leave a deep imprint on one’s mind. The response to Prime Minister Modi’s exhortation to observe a Janta curfew and to come out in balconies to cheer the unsung heroes – doctors, nurses, delivery boys, security guards, bankers et al – who in these times of highly contagious Corona virus are serving the community by risking their lives, was overwhelming to say the least.

We have experienced bandhs and boycotts in our lifetimes. Also, curfews aftermath a riot or an act of terrorism are not uncommon. Many of us have also had the first hand experience of blackouts during the wartime (I have very faint memories of 1965 war, though 1971 wartime I remember distinctly). But this response to PM Modi’s call was most unusual and unique in more than one sense. The entire country chose to observe the self imposed curfew throughout the day and as the clock struck 5 in the evening, it’s as if the entire sea of humanity came out clapping, banging thalis and blowing conch shells to celebrate our unsung heroes. This was hitherto unseen and reaffirmed that whatever be our internal differences , when it comes to a call from the nation, we set aside all our differences to be one – the Indian!

While only the almighty knows how this Coronavirus episode will end, the nation by responding to this call of our PM, demonstrated that the nation is aware of the dangers and consequences, but the nation will fight together and win this war against this enemy of humanity- COVID 19!

Hindu, Muslims, Sikhs and catholics are the way we live each day,

When it’s a call of duty for our beloved India we keep all this at bay;

Together shall we fight any enemy be it as dangerous as Corona virus,

And at the end “Jai Hind” will prevail as India will surely have its own way!