8th APRIL 2020 – 15TH DAY OF COMPLETE LOCK-DOWN OF INDIA

26^TH DAY OF MY SOCIAL ISOLATION

5749 POSITIVE, 164 DEAD (2.85%), 468 RECOVERED (8.14%)

+17% IN POSITIVE CASES FROM YESTERDAY. 

INDIA'S RECOVERY RATE, FOR THE FIRST TIME OVER 8%

MUMBAI NOW IN COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION PHASE - BMC

General Feeling: “Disinterested and aloof, primarily. Listening to Kishore, Jagjit Singh with the ‘full-moon- like-evening’ coming up all bright in the distant horizon. Surprisingly, it’s April and not much of air-conditioning is required if there’s enough ventilation at home. Also, we’ve entered into the second week of April already without realizing how these three weeks have passed in a haze.”

I hear various sounds around me around 7 pm. The church bell rings at 7 every evening. Followed by an aarti that takes place in a Hanuman temple around 8 pm. And half an hour later, I hear the evening Azaan. I hear all three coming in from the same unknown distance and from the darkness of the nearby slum.

Have much to say, but not much strength. So just reflecting on the journey of last two weeks:-

Until tomorrow, let's see how long is the lock-down extended

7th April 2020 14th DAY OF COMPLETE LOCK-DOWN OF INDIA – 2 WEEKS OVER TODAY

25^TH DAY OF MY SOCIAL ISOLATION

4911 POSITIVE, 137 DEAD (2.79%), 382 RECOVERED (7.78%)

General Feeling: “Habit is a great asset. It can be built under any circumstances. I believe it’s a great evolutionary genius that allows us to be okay, in many difficult situations. Habit of staying in has kind of seeped in. It’s not all that bad, is what I hear people say, 2 weeks into this lock-down.”

We have completed two weeks into an abrupt lock-down of a country that houses a 5^th of the world’s population. Without much preparation, without ensuring household and medical supplies and cash availability, we went into hiding. It is important to remember that top 1% of Indians hold 62% of all currency in the country, whereas top 0.1% hold 33%. What it means is that poorest 500 million Indians will be without any cash reserve until 15^th April and another 500 million will only be left with half their reserves.

This has already begun to show deadly outcomes as people do not have access to life-savings drugs and treatments with the focus of the system having completely shifted to fighting COVID. Tuberculosis, HIV, Diabetes, Dialysis, Blood Pressure, Asthma are some of the morbidities that require continuous care, medication and supervision. People who are poor and have illnesses (PS: Poverty and illness has a very high and an obvious correlation.) And no, those staying in slums do not have higher immunity. In-fact they are highly susceptible to diseases due to lower hygiene, poor diet and limited access to health facilities.

And then there’s the basic question of hunger.

Between 5000- 7000 die of hunger in India, every day. India is also the home to 1/3^rd of the world’s hungry. It’s the largest killer in the world. In India, we often wrap it nicely under the term ‘malnourished’. With the lockdown and the consequent panic & exodus, the figures are sure to have risen sharply. Unfortunately, hunger hasn’t gotten enough coverage and no one’s reporting hunger deaths in India every day.

(PS: This figure does not include infant mortality)

(Fun Fact: The government has no official data on starvation deaths. This number has been estimated basis various studies done by WHO, UNICEF and LANCET.)     

Therefore a question to epidemiologists is, whether COVID could be killing 5000-7000 people a day? If not, why are we fighting it like crazy? Let’s take the route of developing herd immunity and perhaps losing a few in the journey. It may sound like a really evil things to say. But let’s look at some facts to take the discussion forward:-

1.       Starvation and Malnutrition kills and stunts the country’s youngest. As per a 2018 UNICEF report, 38% of Indian children under the age of 5 suffered from stunting.

This is the lot of the Indian population that we were supposed to be calling the ‘population dividend’. These are potential producers and definite consumers. Both ways they help the consumption based economy of this country. Plus, if they are healthy (and alive!) , they may bring to the world beautiful, ingenious ideas across science, art, polity or philosophy.

This is the group of the population that represents “India’s future”

2.       COVID-19, on the other hand, kills the elderly. Especially the ones with co-morbidities. In fact, it’s been noted that children are somehow able to fight off this infectious disease without showing many symptoms. In a study of 1,099 patients in China, just 0.9 percent of confirmed cases were under the age of nine, while only 1.2 percent were between 10 and 19 years old.

Therefore it’s only wiping out the ageing population. This population, from a purely resource management point of view is not productive. By no means should we therefore, let them die. We must put in all our efforts to save any and every human life. At what cost, though? That is a question for us to ponder upon and find answers to.

Isn’t this something that politicians, economists, bureaucrats would know and take into account before making policies? Or are we responding to an unseen emergency with such definitive actions because it’s sensational? And it’s hurting the upper-classes and the elite? Because, their lives matter and they need to be saved?

It’s probably lack of information on my side that I only have questions with no clear answers. We need health experts across the world to give us a non-biased view. And we need a little empathy.

Sitting in our homes and staring out of our windows has stripped us away from the sensorial understanding of lives which are worse off than ours. We’re not seeing the road-side poverty and mentally disturbed beggars knocking on our ubers for the last two weeks. We’re not witnessing the stark difference in the food preferences of our house helps and us.

We’ve been packed away with internet at our disposal to watch & read what we prefer to. We have many means of comfort and entertainment, at the press of a button.

Let’s take a moment to consider what this lock-down has brought upon many others. Let’s take a moment to wish well for them, and help them in any way we can.

These days, when people ask me how I am, I tell them I am grateful for however I am, wherever I am.

(Video, Courtesy: https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/newsfeed/2020/04/india-coronavirus-lockdown-sees-exodus-cities-200406104405477.html_

Until tomorrow, prayers!

Interesting & Relevant Reads which are also the sources of many things mentioned in this post:-

1.       Possible Biological Explanations for Kids’ Escape from COVID-19

(https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/possible-biological-explanations-for-kids-escape-from-covid-19-67273)

2.       Chinese Study on Covid-19 and children

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-one-study-from-china-tells-us-about-covid-19-and-children-2020032319279

3.       8.8 lakh (0.88 million) children under 5 years (highest in the world) died in India – UNICEF

https://scroll.in/latest/940851/in-india-8-8-lakh-children-under-five-years-highest-number-in-world-died-in-2018-says-unicef

4.       To read more on hunger across Indian states,

 https://motherchildnutrition.org/india/pdf/mcn-india-state-hunger-index.pdf

5.       Cash Distribution in India – Cashless Indians after lockdown

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/cash-less-indians-the-new-normal-and-survival/article31274464.ece

1.       Expert Epidemiologist, Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP), on COVID in INDIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrrsXCxs2xg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HmlsjsVCLQ&t=39s

6th April 2020 – 13th DAY OF COMPLETE LOCK-DOWN OF INDIA

24TH DAY OF MY SOCIAL ISOLATION

4693 POSITIVE, 129 DEAD (2.75%), 346 RECOVERED (7.37%)

General Feeling: “Reflecting about life is often a beautiful moment. Living that moment, however is surreal. I feel we’re living such a moment of 21 days, reflecting on many many things, which needed attention & time that we just didn’t have.” 

There is only so much one can open up about oneself. Or are there no boundaries?

As I went about the day, I wondered what is it that I wanted to write about in tonight’s blog. I had many ideas actually. I wanted to write about a recent conversation that I had with a bunch of friends in which we wondered why is it that it’s become difficult to find people interesting and intriguing. Why are we so bored easily? Why is it getting difficult to find such common grounds with people that you enjoy your conversations with them and can do that rather regularly?

Were we living in such narrow bubbles that we’re unable to find connections with people? Are we failing to see them as they are and are constantly templatizing and re-organizing them in our set boxes of experiential conditioning? Like, what’s happening?

We didn’t find many answers. And we were too tired to philosophize further. As I understand it, somehow as we grow older and our cohorts become narrower, the ability to find one-ness with another person in any sense, even basic human camaraderie starts getting affected. More and more, we look for people who’re like us. And when we meet them, we sometimes don’t like them. Yeah, that’s kind of weird.

Sometimes, ‘what we like’ and ‘what we want’ are different things. Most of the times, actually!

I also considered addressing the conversation around Corona’s communal nature, which has picked up steam in the country after the Markaz episode. I thought I’ll do a case study of world history to find references of when and how religion has taken more lives than pandemics or wars. How religious theories have burnt men and women, ostracized them, divided them. How religion, of any kind, is being more divisive at a time in which only community welfare and social cooperation can save us from extreme misfortune.

It was an ambitious project to undertake. It was going to need extremely thorough research with credible citations. It was a sensitive topic (read: hyper-ultra-mega-sonic-sensitive). So needed to be handled carefully. And these days, you never know, social media disagreement leads to crimes & all! 

Thank God for the lock-down, it’s unlikely I’ll be attacked with acid. I am not sure why I paint such a grim picture about social-media badgering in my mind. Is it the Deepika Padukone movie (Chhapaak) that I saw a month back? Or is that this topic is actually that explosive?

Anyway, the third and final option was to write a very personal account of suffering & abuse. Of mansplaining, of humiliation and of undue aggression. That would have been kind of crazy. Not just because, I’ve never spoken to many people about this or ever written about it. But, also because I was scared of stirring up the dust that had quietly settled in some place of my generally-worn out heart.

It would perhaps mean calling people out. And I do not want to do that. (Although one would argue that it’s the right thing to do). I am not sure why. It’s not that I am scared. Personally, I am just non-confrontational, I guess. Call it convenience, maybe?

I mean being in touch with oneself is a very difficult pursuit. And you never quite make it a 100%. You’re sometimes 75, sometimes 90, and sometimes not even 30! It keeps somewhat swinging but eventually improving. So I guess, no- matter how much we try, somethings, we’ll always find difficult to address.

This doesn’t mean lack of ‘maturity’. It probably means lack of ‘readiness’. The strength to address these things comes by itself and doesn’t come until you’re kind of ready for it.

Unlike love. Love comes in, when you’re least expecting it.

At least that’s what they say. (Always wondered who ‘they’ were and why they ‘said’ so much!)

So yes, it’s love. The only thing that transcends this animate & in-animate world. The thing that really matters and the thing which exists, in different forms, across time-space, planets and ecosystems. It’s just love that you feel when you’re in sync with the nature. Its love that is joyful and bountiful. Love makes you feel it’s worth living. Love brings meaning. In meaningless ways.

A set of people I love, - Ritu Kothari, Gaurav Nijhawan and their beautiful tiny Anaya. (Ritu & Gaurav are not just my college seniors and close friends. They have often been guardians and treated me like their baby.)
 I often called them Mom & Dad those days, 2010-2015 ish.

5th April 2020 - 12th DAY OF COMPLETE LOCK-DOWN OF INDIA

23rd DAY OF MY SOCIAL ISOLATION

3588 POSITIVE, 99 DEAD (2.76%), 229 RECOVERED (6.38%)

General feeling: “Today felt like a near normal day after a very long time. I did some yoga, got decent breakfast, and went down to buy home supplies, and then a nice shower and afternoon chilling. I didn’t think of any existential questions to answer or pent up conflicts to resolve. I just lived in-the-moment. I think, that can be categorized as happy.”

And that’s why another video blog on a Sunday evening!!

PS:- After all this happy video, pls know that I am still paranoid about the situation. 

Until tomorrow, here we are!

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!

3rd April 2020 -10th DAY OF COMPLETE LOCK-DOWN OF INDIA

21^TH DAY OF MY SOCIAL ISOLATION

2567 POSITIVE, 72 DEAD, 192 RECOVERED

General feeling: “When denial and fear, gives way to acceptance, one feels braver. And that helps you to tell yourself that, I’ll let life be. What happens, happens. Life will go on. And then you just leave everything to time, while trying to do your best. You also understand your limits. And that brings in a great deal of inner peace”

It was extremely busy for a Friday. A lot of work, too many calls and quite a bit of house-work. Today, it was my turn to clean the kitchen and sweep the entire house. I wanted to evade it but once I was at it, I guess I did it diligently. All this has left me quite tired.

I showered after a long hectic day only to sit in my balcony, listening to some old age Hindi music. As the breeze calmed my body and mind, it struck me that some very simple things, which do not cost anything, bring some true happiness. Things as simple & ubiquitous as clean breeze, sun-light, birds – just the sight of nature can make a human feel better. This I feel is a beautiful insight. Into our minds. Into our hearts.

Why is it then, that we run behind pursuits that only wear us down and make us busier? This is a question we can ask ourselves. We may all have different answers. And those answers would lead us on different paths.

The answer we get depends on how deep within can we look. It’s important, however to look outside of ourselves as well. So that we do not become self-obsessed and self-centered. A lot of people are self-centered. Like me, for example.

I’ve been wondering, that in this COVID situation, who would be that one person I’d rather save. The answer was myself. I feel morally upset that I didn’t choose my mother or my father. Or just anyone else. This answer really surprised me. I hadn’t considered myself a very self-centered or selfish person earlier. And hence, once again, an insight into our minds as a species. Maybe, no?

So we’re basically selfish and we like simple natural things. Kind of doesn’t go together.

I am not sure what to make of it. Just too many stranded thoughts, woven into one blog post.

I am really tired today. 

Night sky as I see it from the balcony

Until tomorrow, rest well!

2nd April 2020 - 9th DAY OF COMPLETE LOCK-DOWN OF INDIA

The festival of Ram Navmi in India

20^TH DAY OF MY SOCIAL ISOLATION

2032 POSITIVE, 58 DEAD, 150 RECOVERED

General feeling: “Grief is a strange emotion. It hides in places you can’t see and surfaces at the most unlikely times. You don’t know where its lurking until it comes out and leaves you vulnerable. Grief brings along with itself - disinterest, isolation and confusion. Sometimes you don’t even know why you’re feeling what you are feeling. However that’s how complex our minds are and of-course, our lives are”

It’s not easy to write every-day about something as morbid as the Corona pandemic and the lock-down of the country. At the same time, it is one of the few things that’s continuing to give me strength in these difficult times. The response of some of my friends to this blog has been of utmost encouragement. Some have questioned the relevance of a blog. As per them, in this new-age Instagram world, I am losing out on a large part of the audience by writing on  blogger and not on Insta. I am not sure what to make of this thought. Is it perhaps the right thing to do?

I am not so sure given the format and content of my blog is far more serious and requires more than few fleeting seconds of attention from people. Regardless, it is a personal endeavor. It’s meant more for me than anyone else. So for now, I’ll let this debate go un-attended.

The day started very early today. At 7 am, I struggled to wake up. However, turns out that the call I was supposed to attend, was after all, quite worth it. Nevertheless, it took away the most productive part of the day and once it ended, I got busy in day to day household activities and some usual work. The highlight of the day, was my evening nap, though restful, turned out to be slightly un-nerving.

Let me tell you why. I dreamt of being at my uncle’s place (which is in Bhandup) with the rest of the family there as well. I was shocked to be there, since I had absolutely no recollection of traveling to his place. I was in a night gown without a mask, sitting at their dining table. My mama was quite astonished to see me and asked me how I had managed to travel. I told him, that this was a dream and it couldn’t be true. Then he held my hand to make me realize that it was indeed the reality and not a dream.

I shook with fear as I wondered how it had happened. Was it teleportation? I was concerned about not having my laptop with me. I was concerned about how I’d work the next day. He told me there wasn’t anything to do about it and now that I was at his place, I should just stay put. Eventually as the day progressed (in the dream), I met my mother in his society play area.

My mother was her 25 year old self wearing a denim, a green sweater and a white-black scarf, looking absolutely stunning. She just stood around, all chill. She looked so young and beautiful! I was impressed and proud of her. I am not sure how I recognized her but I knew she was my mother. And mom knew, I was her daughter. I immediately hugged her. It seemed so real to be hugging my mother in the dream. I felt her warmth, her reassurance and her love, all at once. At that point, I was convinced it wasn’t a dream but reality. And tears started to roll down my cheeks with a definitive knot in my throat.

As I hugged her tight, I woke up, with tears rolling down my cheeks.

I took me about fifteen minutes to grapple with the dream which had felt absolutely real. I took some time to regain my composure.

My younger brother happened to message me at that very moment. I narrated the incident to him. He said it could be a lucid dream or a trip to a parallel universe.

If it was a lucid dream, it brought out the deep underlying need of my psyche. If it was a parallel universe, I am glad my mother looked stunning.

Sharing a picture of her younger self. She was indeed impressive. But her warmth and love trumps all the visible beauty in this world.

(This is 2005. I was 15 years old. My mother was 39.)

The festival of Ramnavmi, in our part of the country is celebrated in reverence of Goddess Durga, who is supposed to be loving but could also be ghastly. A lot of Hindus refer to her as “Ma”. It culminates 9 days of worshiping the goddess.

Though I am not very religious, I am happy to romanticize this dream today as something out of the material world.

Until tomorrow, keep safe.