In the second half of the year 2002, I had the opportunity to stay for a few weeks with my uncle, as I worked as an architectural apprentice. He was my father's elder brother, and as a child, I had only known him as one of my uncles who lived a great distance away. Later, after his retirement, he moved two doors down from us and we began to see more of him. We, teenagers and kids, were all a little afraid of this stern man of few words. When we, neighborhood boys played raucous street cricket on evenings or summer afternoons, and the ball made its way into his compound, I was always chosen to retrieve it, being his nephew and all. I remember him spending entire afternoons on the front verandah, with the newspaper spread out in front of him. And he always had stern words in store for noisy brats like us.
During my stay with him, I got to know him better, and we had some very interesting, albeit, rather one sided conversations. Looking back, it is interesting on how, in spite of having been something of a bookworm since I can remember, I still thought of his newspaper reading habit as an old-man habit. Staying with him, I began to see his depth of knowledge and understanding. I had lost one of my grandfathers before I was even born, and the other when I was only a few years old. Now, staying with this wise uncle, I had found a paternal grandfather-like figure who I could look up to and talk to. I spent weekend afternoons with my nose in his encyclopedia collection from the fifties; intricate, yet simple illustrations, supplemented a lucid text in episodes on basic science, mechanics and geography. He explained the evening news and its ramifications to me, and even indulged me, by watching a couple of senseless popcorn-flicks on the television. Something that he often spoke about was our education system, and how our generation in spite of having so many choices of specialization, failed to apply the knowledge that we had picked up along the way. He was always the one for common sense, of which, I can be particularly lacking at times.
He is not with us now, having passed away in 2003. Today, sitting in self-imposed home quarantine on a day when the Prime Minister of India has requested the citizens of India to observe "Janata Curfew" in lieu of the n-Covid-19 pandemic, I am harking back on his memories, and wondering how he would react to the world of today. He would not, perhaps, have taken very kindly to the Prime Time News debate circus, or social media, with its flood of mis-information, propaganda and click-bait hype. I cannot help but feel the importance of his words today, when I read news articles debunking social media nuggets such as the ones that suggest that today's curfew will help break the chain completely as the virus lives for only twelve hours on a surface, and the curfew is fourteen hours. Even as scientists, healthcare workers, doctors and social workers strive to contain the pandemic, to treat people and to find a cure, others are being negligent to safety.
One week ago, there were less than a hundred infected persons in India. In a week, the country has seen more than two hundred new cases, and a real concern rise among the population. Across the country, people are being urged, or are urging their organizations to be allowed to work from home. Yet, with a population as large as ours, and a density as high as ours, a single incident can trigger a dangerous condition.
I don't know if my good uncle would have found it funny or outraging, but today, we are being taught to wash our hands on national news; people are turning to cow urine, garlic and even hot water as a cure or antidote; a symbolic gesture of thanks is being turned into a mindless mass movement; a test run for organizing a massive requirement of crowd control is instead being hailed as an ingenious masterstroke, that will all, but gain complete victory over our current problem. If events in China and Europe are any indication, we face challenging times ahead, and the potential for disaster sends a shiver down the spine.
A few years ago, two incidents of hospital fire in India led to an overhaul of fire norms in the building and construction industry. The current pandemic that is seizing the world, can potentially change the way we look at security, immigration, remote working, trade, traffic, healthcare and a hundred other things. The world has probably changed forever and we are in the middle of a historic event in human history. Let us hope that better sense prevails all over. Let us hope that the loss of life in this great pandemic can be restricted to the maximum possible, and the sufferings of the living can be contained to a minimum.
Stay safe! Stay away!
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