LOVE IN THE TIME OF CORONA
“I don’t believe in God,
but, I am afraid of him.”
-
Nobel Laureate Gabriel
Gracia Marquez
I have come to work. But, if I am told
to go back home, I will…
Yes, I will co-operate with the authorities
to ‘fight’ the present situation. Perhaps, I can afford to go back home, even though
the nature of my work – classroom teaching – makes it difficult for me to work from
home. Anyway, I will still figure a way out to help my students, sitting at home…
But, is that the answer to ‘fight’ this
virus… rather any virus, for that matter?
I think, we all have lost our collective
ability to ‘fight’. We have become too ‘soft’, too ‘spoon-fed’ and, thereby,
too ‘vulnerable to being ‘infected’ by all viruses, including the deadliest of
all – ‘Fear’!
Yesterday, I had to tell this to the doting
parents of some of my students, when they were telling me: “Sir, they will have
to commute by autos”… “Sir, they will have to commute by buses… trains… So, we
are scared!”
I couldn’t convince them beyond a
certain point… “Thy will be done,” I conceded!
The young kids around me haven’t seen
some of the things we kids had seen, at their age, back in our village: Lepers,
Elephant Legs, Social isolation (a different kind of Quarantine!) of Brahmin
widows, Shooing away and banishment of people of ‘low’ castes and tribes… The
food scarcity during the Indo-Pak wars, the famines, the droughts, the Cholera,
even the ghost of Small Pox… the cyclones and the earthquakes… the communal
riots…
No, nobody wants these things, Sir. I
know, that there were even worse disasters in the centuries before us… and,
people who suffered did say: “No, nobody wants these things!”
But, then, here it is, today – the feared
Corona… bringing the world on its knees!
But, I doubt, the world ever learns
anything from any disasters…
Sorry for sounding so pessimistic!
The watchmen, the haatgaadi fruit and vegetable vendors, the rickshaw-walas, the
daily wage-workers… who have their families to fend just as you and I have ours
– yes, how will they sit at home and work?
To me, this thought is very disturbing!
But, then, whether you are a highly-qualified,
a well-placed and a well-paid and a globe-trotting individual – or a haatgaadiwala or rickshaw-wala – it just
doesn’t count in times like these… Everyone gets swept away…
Don’t want to believe this?
Then, read this ‘humbling’ agony of my
friend, who sent this piece to me early this morning:
Love in the Time of Corona
- Our Saga
My husband and I
landed at 9.15 am
(before time!) in New
Delhi from
Frankfurt, this
morning.
Joined Queue for
Fever check-up
= 1 hour.
Then submitted
self-declaration forms
where they asked us
to "surrender" passports
= 2 minutes.
Then, collection of
passports for Immigration
= 2 hours.
Immigration Q
= 15 minutes
(Again passports
taken away!).
Return of passports
before bags
= 2 hours.
Baggage collection
= 5 minutes.
Boarded bus for
Quarantine Centre
beyond Pataudi (Again
passports taken away)
= 1 hour.
Drive to Quarantine
Centre, SGT Hospital, Gurgaon
= 2 hours.
Assigned Dormitories
to share (30 #s per dorm)
for 2-week
observation
= 10 minutes.
We refused, insisting
max double-occupancy.
Stalemate…
On checking, we find
dirty linen, stinky
loos + mosquitoes...
Nothing to eat or drink
so far,
not for love or money…
It's past 7.00 pm
now, and we are hungry
since airline
breakfast at 6.00 am…
Intermittent fasting!
Tea + biscuits appear,
Medical
Superintendent disappears!
We are in house
arrest, Cops all around…
Not allowed to cross
road to food thelas!
I take charge,
rallying the 6-busloads
to join forces…
Voices, tempo and
tempers are raised.
And, Medical
Superintendent reappears
with Gurgaon DM in
tow.
They announce that we
will get our passports
post self-declaration
(again!)
Food packets appear
at 9.00 pm.
Food consumed and
declarations done
by 10.00 pm.
No checking or
verification of declarations…
Passports are
returned for the 3rd time today!
Finally at 11.00 pm,
we are free to go home!!
Booked Uber, just
boarded
and started typing
this message…
Eye-witness account, statement
of facts,
Sans learning to accept
the truth:
‘We are just humans’!
Final Fact: at each
and every stage of this saga,
we were kept in the
dark about the next step…
And I suspect, so
were our handlers.
Reached home to Noida
at midnight .
(Sent from my iPhone)
There was this young boy working in my
office for many years. His mother, who had never seen the corridors of a
school, would remind her children till she died after suffering a great deal
due to her failed kidneys:
“Jahan sab, wahan hum!”
Don’t want to believe this, too?
I don’t know why my friend chose to
baptise her traumatic piece as:
“Love in the Time of Corona – Our Saga’!
Perhaps, she was inspired by Nobel
Laureate Gabriel Gracia Marquez’ novel – ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’!
GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Adobe Stock Images
Video: Carroll Roberson
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