4th April 2020 - 11th DAY OF COMPLETE LOCK-DOWN OF INDIA

22^TH DAY OF MY SOCIAL ISOLATION

3082 POSITIVE, 86 DEAD, 229 RECOVERED

General feeling: “The much awaited weekend is here. Saturdays are meant to laze and sleep, right? I did just that. Between feeling confused & hazy.”

I read a report on live-mint which said that if the COVID infection rate continues to grow in the same proportion, the entire country would be engulfed in it in less than 85 days. Now, that was fucking eye-opening. It felt like, it’s just going to happen to you – sooner or later. I mean it’ll take a great deal of good luck to avoid this infection which seems to be spreading faster than a forest fire. So now I have kind of left it to my immunity to decide whether I am going to live or die. (That doesn’t mean I’ll not be cautious or not follow prevention guidelines.)

Anyhow, this kind of mental preparation (for the dooms day) helps. It lets you be peaceful and face the eventuality instead of fearing and crumbling under its imminence. And then you end up thinking about some of the questions, you felt most conflicted about. For me, it’s been the choice of bearing children.

As a child, I wanted a child. Because I wanted to be like my mother as any other kid would want to be. But as I grew up, my notions of life-path, my identity and my choices started to grow and re-shape themselves again and again. Like the new roots, often grasp the trunk of the tree in circular tight embraces, new understanding of the world started to wrap around my conditioned ideas. And they began to re-shape my value system. I began to look at the world from a rather independent lens which was an outcome of my formal education, my family, friends, boy-friends and some life experiences. Both, happy ones and difficult ones.

I now consider myself almost fully shaped mentally to know the right from wrong and be more aware of my choices. Until recently, in the pre-COVID world, I was pretty convinced about not wanting to bear my own children. It was not due to a lack of maternal instinct or not wanting responsibility. It came in from much nobler places. One, I understand the pressure of human population on natural resources. And I am also aware of human suffering. There are millions of kids without families. Why not, adopt a child and raise him/her as your own? What’s this obsession with genetic progression? Can’t we rise above our crude instincts and use our minds – the most prized possession that has given such power to our species? And why does love have to be so selfish that you wouldn’t love just any child as your own? Shit, I really did expect better from this human race.

And my second reason is my innate and deep love for my unborn children, for who, I do not consider this world worthy. I am not okay giving birth to babies where basic human needs like clear air, water and safety are not possible. I do not want newborns to make these kind of compromises. I want to be able to afford them the best air, best food and decent space to develop into fulfilled and compassionate healthy human beings.

However, even after having such strong reasons, I suddenly just feel the wish to have someone like my own. It’s indeed so selfish a thought, it almost feels like indulgence. But I feel, life is so fragile no matter how big our economies become and how tall our buildings rise, that it must not only be protected, it must in-fact be continued. And to have a sense of continuity in my mind, to have a proliferation of self – through which you live an extended life-span, through which you could re-live your life. A very deep rooted instinct for human beings. Nevertheless, very selfish.

I had concluded yesterday, that we’re a selfish species. Yet another point that proves it.

Relevant picture today:- 2 generations of daughters!

Anyway, happy weekend!