Friday, March 27, 2020

Life in the Days of Coronavirus - Day 2 of 21 Days of Lockdown, March 26

Day 2 started out with a sense of uncertainty. It hung in the air right from morning. I decided to get to work after doing my gratitude journal and making some calls that I planned to. These days I sit outside and enjoy the shy, trees and birds. I made calls to Abhinay, Vasu, Bro Joseph, Bhupinder, Pooja, Mythily, Bansi, Joel, Chitra Viraragavan, Tenzin, Vidyut, Chanti while Bhaskar and Ram reached out to me. Worked on the novella on our University exploits and interviewed Bansi regarding the same. It was an hour long call.
Locked down - Satish N
I could not do my gratitude chart as I meant to but I will complete that tomorrow. I started reading a book called 'Being You' by Dan Heer which is quite interesting. I was always interested in finding out what Being You means. Then I watched an animated movie 'Princess and the Frog' with Anjali and it was very nice indeed. Then in the evening, I watched '93 Days' a movie on how Nigeria contained a possible Ebola outbreak in 2014. It was pretty interesting as disaster movies go and one finds similar words, thoughts and fears echoed today in our present day circumstances. I think I'll stick with romances or comedies from now on.

My song was well appreciated by the people I shared it with yesterday. I am finding that my days are suddenly being too full instead of being lazed out and empty. I seem to be filling them with up with work again. Decided to work no more than an hour or two tomorrow and stay free of the phone all day save two windows - of an hour. The phone is a killer. In fact I am wondering if I should just go off the phone for a couple of days. That should give me time to spend with Anjali or do more leisurely things like simply sleeping.

I see more and more types of birds these days (pics tomorrow). Some extremely small varieties which flit by in their delicate bodies. I always wonder how they live their lives so happily, busily. They do enough to take care of themselves, protect themselves from danger, no hospitals, but don't go into stuff like what-will-happen-to- the-world-if-I-die kind of thoughts. Anyway, they are having a ball which is nice.

I also love the way the young kid who comes to collect garbage in his van peps his job up. He has fitted his van with a music system and comes and plays loud, peppy music, giving a damn about the scared silence in the colony. I can see how people have gone down to whispers when they speak, as if scared to awaken a sleeping giant. I am thinking I'll follow the path of Shiva, the garbage collector and blast some music tomorrow morning just to shake things up a bit. No law against that.

But the fear is palpable across the phone and the messages which are getting more and more distressed. This is a critical period, be careful etc. I can see apartments have locked their doors in their bid to 'Go Corona'. At the same time I see hundreds of young executives trying to get themselves a pass to go home milling about near police stations, or even people not really practicing the distance advisory at stores. My hands have never been cleaner, probably slimmer what with so many cells being washed off. The medical shop nearby functions through the grill - he is practising social distancing.

In the evening at 4 pm Shobha conducted a small meditation for me and Anjali. We thought we'd fit in some routines to pass time. That proved that I had lost all touch with the meditative mind - mine wandered everywhere. I think I will do that for the rest of the 21 days. Also will fit in a walking routine at home. A walk to the medical shop was nice - empty roads. I saw many older people step out of their homes for a walk in the evening, some walked their dogs.

Amidst all this confusion, I see the administration merely using the police and law and order. There's not much information about health services, backups, commodities. I don't see as many advisories about what to do in case anyone shows symptoms, don't see nearby hospitals or helpline being advertised (not enough at least), I definitely don't see enough public representatives doing their bit (I did see one video by Vishveswar Reddy, former MP, where he and his team explained how to make a sanitiser at home. The rest - a huge silence. Which is probably better than talking nonsense like most of them did before the seriousness struck them. What the hell are they all doing? Normally they are so vocal on every stage and here they are with nothing to say.

Anyway, I hope to get more organised with my thoughts as my day's progress. Oh, the newspapers have stopped a couple of days ago after a genuine attempt to convince the public that newspapers are absolutely safe to use. Looks like they discovered otherwise! 

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