It was around mid-January when through a small news bulletin people came to know about a virus playing havoc in china. It was reported that people are getting sick and losing their lives in large numbers. But it was kind of news nobody actually pays attention to, like a terrorist attack in some foreign land or a natural calamity. We read about it, feel bad, utter some ‘tch tch’, and shrug it off. Coronavirus would have been the same if it hadn’t restricted the lives of every living being present on this earth. Coming from a small town in China, Wuhan, it gradually brought all the biggest countries of the world on their knees forcing them to surrender and shut down completely. Advanced countries like Italy, France, and America lost thousands of people in a span of a single day.
Maybe it was then that coronavirus emerged from being just a news story to be a matter of concern and discussion in living rooms. I think we were still not careful about it.
Then came a wave when it started chasing us into our homes. In a span of a few weeks, the virus crept into our country razing metro cities in unimaginable numbers. It chased people coming into the shelter of safety, unknowingly carrying the death with them.
In no time we got locked down in our homes, stalled all our travels, and watched the world going upside down on your screens. It is still continuing with no sight of any improvement.
Today after precisely 5 months and 152 days since it first appeared in China, coronavirus alias Corona alias COVID 19 pandemic has metamorphosed our lives in a way that it would never be the same. It has not only changed the way we are living now but also our future forever.
We can no longer give random hugs to people who look a bit low, cannot start on an impromptu trip, can not stay in any random hotel, or eat on any roadside Dhaba. We can no longer go around carefree and uncovered, and cannot brush off the sneezes and coughs that arrive hand in hand with the weather change.
For a while ( read: 6 months to one year) our office would be confined to our study table and tea breaks to coffee on our table. For a while, there would be no parties, no picnics, and maybe no the-big-fat-Indian- wedding.
The news stories will keep serving human interest stories of migrant laborers losing jobs, starving, and dying an oblivious death due to lack of necessities. The economy would struggle hard to keep afloat letting go of thousands of jobs everywhere. The politics will see it’s all-time low with the blame game, voter strategy, and an attempt to dissolve governments every now and then.
The only good thing about this ‘break from life’ has been nature healing itself.
However, till the time an antidote or vaccine or medicine that completely cures the effect of this deadly virus is made, Corona is here to stay. And we will have to deal with it.