A month long pause.
It’s now almost a month since most of us are working from home/sheltered in place. It’s such a phenomenal experience. In many ways it was inclusive and in so many ways laid bare the disparities in the society. I hope this is a once in a lifetime experience.
There is nothing normal about:
- Children not attending school or being able to visit and spend time with their grandparents
- People not being able to meet families even while they were very sick
- Not being able to take a flight even in dire situations
- The EU that tries so hard to keep its borders open is compelled to close them
- Patients with other illnesses are put to wait (when possible) as COVID took limelight
- Daily wage people facing the brunt with barely anything to fall back on
- Scores of people loosing their jobs and livelihoods…the list can go on.
It is interesting to see that the privileged ones are taking to yoga, baking, cooking, painting, singing, playing an instrument, writing — all of which are things that are not done as much given our normal life schedules. This is despite the fact that all of us who are working from home see that we end up working longer hours than when we go to a physical office.
All through I think most of us spoke a lot more to our friends and families than before. After all we were all in the same boat. I got tons of pictures from friends and family from India. I listened to their (firsthand) stories of what’s happening through the month of lockdown. Fascinating!
In 2019, the Yamuna was the ‘dying river’ of Delhi. It was often foaming with toxic waste harming the entire ecosystem around it. Just 20 days of lockdown was enough for this river to regenerate itself:
Delhi and its suburb of Gurugram is known for its extremely high pollution levels. Almost always reaching hazardous levels. There was always a blanket of smog through the day.
Come lockdown and all of a sudden, the sky was blue again and there were Peacocks on the balconies and streets of Delhi.
Bengaluru is increasingly losing its bird population owing to the crazy construction and loss of habitat. Some of my bird watching friends took to bird watching from their balconies and guess what — there’s plenty to spot and listen to their calls. It’s all peaceful out there.
It just took 20 odd days of lockdown for all this to happen? Its almost like the birds were just waiting along the fringes…
All this makes me wonder, about some things that are seen as, ‘normal.’
- How is living in cities with ‘hazardous air quality’ where blue skies were mostly unknown be normal?
- Why is it normal that we never got the chance to let our creativity flourish and prioritise our health?
- How can it be normal to rarely see any birds around when just a 20 days lockdown bring peacocks to our balconies?
- Why is it normal that the moment a crisis hits, hordes of people have nothing to eat, while others still have Corona parties?
- Why is it normal that sustenance medicines are not available for patients because it is made somewhere far away?
- How is it normal that rivers become clean in just a few days despite previous failed attempts costing millions?
- How was it normal that families hardly spent time with each other — kids often went to bed without seeing their parents/ elders rarely got help or company?
- How is it normal to draw a clear boundary between work and all the other demands and scenarios of life?
- How is it normal to aspire for a jet-setting life — eating different meals in different continents while losing sleep and at the cost of one’s health?
None of this sounds normal to me after witnessing and experiencing what happens when we are all not going about our lives and work in a ‘normal’ way.
Life, to me is never about one or the other: work or home; economy or environment; success or health.
Life, to me is always about ‘and.’
So, in some aspects of this lockdown felt very humane. To see pet dogs and kids running up to my colleagues as we speak about work.
We are forever discussing about achieving the perfect work-life balance. But the base of this is to see these two as two separate boxes that are mutually exclusive. The reality being, work is one part of life. COVID-19 made this very evident.
I see this situation as a great opportunity to really ask questions and change things. As we now speak of returning to normality, I wonder if we learnt anything from this extraordinary situation, we’ve all gone through? Will we change anything?
What kind of a ‘new normal’ do we want?
I suspect that many things will return to the old ways because that’s the only known and familiar way of life. Re-opening will be a rush of blood for everything that had come to a grinding halt.
So many of us are such victims of our habits that we can’t even imagine that there are options and alternatives.
I hope we look beyond some obvious, tactical steps when we get out of this. I hope experiencing this and seeing a different side of life makes people pause, think and ask themselves some questions.