LIVING IN THE TIME OF CORONA

LIVING IN THE TIME OF CORONA

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. –Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities,

These are difficult times. These are testing times. It’s surreal; I thought that this was the stuff that one reads in books and sees in movies; of future catastrophes and the race to save mankind from decimation.  A few decades ago I read Albert Camus’s novel ‘The Plague’, an allegorical novel, which tells the story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition. A passage from the book reads -

“Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.”

I vividly remember the Surat Plague of 1994. I was doing a daily commute (or ‘up down’ as per the prevailing Gujarati local parlance) from Ahmedabad to Baroda and back, since I was posted in the Bank’s Zonal Office at Baroda and I continued to reside in Ahmedabad. I would catch the train at 7.30 am and return home at 9.00 pm. The daily grind was literally a grind, with the train packed with fellow commuters. But I would always manage to get a quarter of a seat, generously offered by some kind soul. I learned to sit, balancing on my buttocks and finish reading the day’s newspaper by the time the train reached Baroda. I did this for two years and came out unscathed, despite the heavy rains, floods and of course the plague. During the plague, every day after getting on to the train in the morning, I would silently recite a prayer (and I am sure my family back home must have done the same) and as a measure of added precaution, I would tie a handkerchief across my mouth and nose. I would scan my co-passengers watching out for symptoms of sickness, and heave a sigh of relief when back home in the night, but with an innate fear that I could have caught the infection.  

In Surat, the signs had been ominous much before, with the piling up of dead rats on the roads of the city. Having lived in Surat for five years from 1977 to 1982, I was not surprised. It was perhaps one of the dirtiest cities in the country at that time with open drains and poor garbage collection systems. Whenever the monsoon was heavy, the river Tapi would overflow its banks, flood the low-lying areas, and in the process send back all that had been thrown into it. As such the city was waiting for an epidemic to happen and it did. There was more misinformation than dissemination of the actual reality on the ground. The city panicked and thousands fled. The situation was such, that whenever any train approached Surat station, the passengers in the train would shutter down their windows and close the doors of the carriage, and at the height of the epidemic, the trains would just pass on without stopping. The city and its population had become outcasts. However, the plague was contained within a month, but the after-effects continued for some more time.

When I evaluate what Surat was then and what it is now (one of the cleanest cities in India) there are lessons to be learned while tackling the present pandemic of the Coronavirus COVID 19. The plague, of course, has been a mass killer right from the medieval times, but has been contained, Corona still isn’t. It’s reach and the speed at which it is spreading is much more alarming. History is replete with epidemics/pandemics and how they have finally resulted in a quantum jump for the better, in the way we conduct our lives, and increased awareness to gear up in case of further calamities in the offing. This is the age of information and with the tools available to us and ensuring that there is a responsible dissemination by the media concerned, it should be possible to avert the panic that could set in and help in finding a faster road to recovery. There is any amount of information available now as to how this can be done, but the success of any endeavor will depend on how we as a population strictly adhere to the curbs and regulations spelled out by the authorities, even at the cost of sacrificing our personal freedom, to ensure our family’s and the well-being of the community at large. As I write this the government has issued directives in this regard.

In Albert Camus’s ‘The Plague’, the struggle to overcome the plague that struck the city of Oran included sealing of the borders of the city, and a team of dedicated individuals attending to the afflicted. What is happening now in tackling the Coronavirus will be very similar.

However, the same fears I noticed during the plague of Surat, are now more pronounced.  As a sense of panic sets in, we lookout for infections (which of course we should) to take timely action, trying to co-relate our status with all the listed symptoms. We look at our neighbors with suspicion and necessarily avoid social interaction. Maintaining social distancing is a necessity until the epidemic is rooted out, but we can stay in touch and help each other without touching. Social distancing does not mean avoidance. 

We had in the past and we shall now, overcome.

I admit that the title of this post is inspired by the title of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’. That’s all. But you will agree that living is a necessity for loving. Once you learn to live, love follows.

I end with a quote from my book ‘The Diary of Mrityunjay’ (yet to be published)–

‘It’s normal to feel ‘fear’. The fear of extinction is very strong. We are afraid that we may be wiped out before our search is over without finding an answer to this riddle called life. The instinct for survival is predominant in all of us and we are always in search of different ways and means to ensure we continue to survive.’

And survive, we shall.