Nobel George
Hyderabad
7 April 2020
"Statue…!"
Still waiting for the obvious.
Standing on the balcony with the warm wind kissing my face, on a hot Hyderabadi summer afternoon, I watch the movement on the road below. Nothing moves. No-one is out on the road. Suddenly, one man on a red bike rips off. The sound is deafening for a moment but then an eerily silence follows. Again, nothing. No-one. 20 minutes pass by and towards the end of my patience, a woman, perhaps a house-maid walks slowly, her shoulders bent inwards, eyes staring down at the road and a pale blue mask on her face, she walks tiredly step by step. Perhaps tired after doing all the household work of her employer for many hours. Even she disappears soon enough. Again, no sound. No people. Silence. No vehicles. No movement on the road, which was about 2 weeks back, a busy street with people swarming to the shops, moving in and out of their houses and parcel boys in their uniforms delivering their packages everywhere. Business was good and people were too busy with their jobs and targets tirelessly rushing towards nowhere, but still rushing. In one abrupt moment, everything comes to a grinding halt. Business stops in its tracks as if someone started the old childhood game of 'Statue'. Everyone stopped. Everything stopped.
[Note: "Statue" was a childhood game which almost everyone is aware of. When it's played, one player shouts "Statue" and the others instantly stops movement and stays in the exact same position as if frozen. The one who moves first gets out and loses a point and has to do what the others ask of him, like jump like a hen, walk like a dog, sing a song, dance, slap himself, etc. And so it goes on and on.]
What the hell actually happened? Let's go back before someone said "Statue". All of us were so immersed in the daily toil of life that we were completely ignorant that such a situation will arise. We even foolishly made plans for the Festivals this month. Shopping, Food, Parties, Outings, etc. From many years we had practised only to bother about ourselves. We were busy in making ourselves busy. Money - was the lover we all yearned for. We wanted her so bad, that everyone else, family, friends, relatives, neighbours, teachers, even God, was out of our priority list. It was a grind that we thoroughly enjoyed being in, even if we would whine about it’s hardships all the time. And we found a reason to blame - family - wife & kids. While the truth was that we were only doing it for ourselves and the family was eating out of our leftovers, always. And we were so blindly proud about what we did, that we never admitted it even to ourselves. We are afraid to accept the true nature of that man - I. If we knew him more, there would be no-one we would hate more than him - I. It was our greed, our inexorable ego to be better than everyone we know. The constant struggle to show-off that what I do and what I am is in someway better than others. We were the duplicate Kings, sorry Emperors of our own sand castles built on the feeble sands of ego, dangerously close to the savage sea of pride and insurmountable prejudices. And then that horrible wave came…
Everything seemed normal for a few days. No-one understood anything about what was about to hit them. Some Chinese virus is spreading worldwide - thats all we heard. Before we could realise or even react, someone shouted "Statue…!". And that was the end of it. Everything stopped, except time. The whole world reeled under the pressure of the highly contagious virus. Nothing was the same again. When working from home became the new normal, the world enjoyed it for a couple of days behind shut doors. Businesses around the globe came to a stand still. Then slowly, the comfort of our homes began to take its toll on our patience. Everyday the news reported more and more cases and the death toll was increasing. Fear gripped our souls and we stopped stepping out of our houses. The whole country went into a complete lockdown for 1 day. And then for 21 days. We were imprisoned by ourselves because of our own fear of death, inside the confines of our houses for more time than we imagined. This is the same house we spent a lifetime, making. This is the same family for whom we boasted that we worked so hard for. This is the same love we always wanted, which we were getting the whole day and night. But somehow, instead of celebrating every moment, we were upset by the fact that we were locked inside. Why are we so very contradictory in our mannerisms as humans? When we are driven out, we want to be in. And when we are locked in, we want to be out. Perhaps, a little balance of everything is the most perfect way to keep ourselves sane. Too much of anything could possibly make us, say 'non compos mentis'. This proves my point that we are all selfish beings. We are only our own. And nobody’s else. Harshest truth gets choked down your throat only by self-realisation. Slowly everything started to fade away from our minds, even structured memory. We stopped counting days, we forgot which day it was until we checked it on the mobile phone. We lost track of time, the one commodity which was always out of stock for the real things that mattered in our lives.
On the other side, the burning streets of the capital were doused with the rain of precautions for the pandemic. A blessing in disguise for the rulers who were almost losing the battle for implementing some population register. At a point when it seemed that this fire would devour their power, their prayers were answered in the form of this virus. Every protest was silenced with an iron hand clad in the cloak of disguise of the lockdown. Suddenly the entire defence mechanism that we were so proud of, seemed completely useless. All those billions pumped into the Defence sector year after year looked like a stupid joke. All that tax money was not even worth as much as toilet paper. This is what life does to you. As someone said, Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans. All the while we were buying more sophisticated weapons spending billions of rupees. Not a single shot was fired, but still we were all fighting tooth and nail with a common enemy. All that power that the strongest nations in the world possessed seemed simply futile. The whole country shuddered with fear of the consequences of this pandemic. Day after day, the people who got infected was raising. But still, when compared to the rest of the world, my country was doing pretty good. The numbers were on the rise but slower was the rate at which it was growing. And we rejoiced at the fact that we have contained it well. Our unity as a nation was still intact and strong.
This could be the new norm. The new world where everyone is careful and fearful. Social distancing could well become the next way of life. We might not shake hands anymore. We might not invite people into our houses anymore. We might not meet our friends at our regular joints anymore. We might not go into a mall all excited anymore. We might do most of our shopping online. We would step out of our houses very rarely, only if necessary. We might become more and more lonelier in this world. The way things are done, will drastically change. Because there is a great possibility that the fear shall prevail long enough.
But there are many good things which came out of this, as everything in this world has a good and bad side to it. Pollution levels are at an alarmingly low rate. We are able to see stars in the sky from our cities, a phenomenon impossible to think of just 20 days back. Wildlife is coming back. Sharks, Whales, swans, elephants, peacocks, rare birds and many more are returning. We might learn to keep our air fresh and co-exist with these animals. We have gotten back to playing with our kids and talking for hours with our spouses. We have reverted to taking time to call our relatives and friends and chit-chat for a little while being genuinely concerned for them. We have started to pray to God everyday, sincerely. We have started to appreciate the amount of work women do at home and genuinely helping them. We have understood the difference between Wants and Needs. We have realised that what we have is more than enough for us and we don’t actually need when we thought we needed. We have started to teach our kids morals, values and lessons from story books. We have started to understand the importance of charity and kind-heartedness to the less fortunate in our society. And most importantly, we have accepted death as a possible eventuality and have started to see the value of life from death’s perspective. If we can take these lessons seriously, I assure you that not a single day will pass by without we living our life happily and fully. Every single day will be a celebration of life. Then let death come anytime - I would look him in the eye and say, Yes I am ready. I leave you with that thought. Statue…!
