2020- AN UNPRECEDENTED YEAR

 

                                                                                                              

2020- AN UNPRECEDENTED YEAR.

Began with the usual gung-ho about having a ‘happy new year’, dancing, drinking, hugging, throwing treacle in the air, balloons and fire-crackers lighting up the sky as the world merrily bid good-bye to 2019.

A quiet January, a few short holidays thrown in here and there, resolutions stand broken and life gets on, seemingly normal, unsuspecting of the stealthily crouching tiger in your back-yard.

By February, reports filter in about a viral disease spreading in faraway China, where people were being asked/ forced to stay at home, doctors being picked up and transported for service to unknown destinations for an indefinite time. Pictures of deserted Wuhan captured the imagination of millions across the globe, yet for us, it was far too away. Life went on.

Early march, Italy and Spain repulsed under the attack of the virus, now known as Covid-19 and the sand under the feet shook. Trips to European cities stayed suspended as it was they who were affected. We were still denying its existence and went on with our routine.

Mid- March, international travelers brought the first few cases, a days’ Janata curfew followed by first ever lockdown for next three weeks brought our country to a grinding halt. International borders were sealed, air traffic halted and states closed vehicular movement.

Migration of a panicked, scared people working in other than their home states and now dying to go home became a crisis of getting thrown out of their homes for fear of bringing in the disease and deaths in uncountable numbers as they walked in hordes from one state to another in blistering heat.

The virus had attacked, pandemic was declared, hospitals burst at seams with patients coming in with anything from a running nose to severe breathlessness and some dying on hospital stretchers even before help could reach. ICUs seemed inadequate and none knew which medicines worked.

The count was rising and rising and rising!

Protocols during the next few months got set and re-set even as hundreds of doctors, over-worked, tired, breathless behind PPE kits, scared, affected and even dying of the illness, kept their chin up and fought to snatch as many lives as could be from the clutches of this monster virus.

Festivals, gatherings, weddings, parties were banned and face-mask became the unique tiny piece of apparel that would save hundreds of lives.

Economy took the worst hit as businesses spiraled into oblivion, the biggest IT industry moved inside homes of the millions of computer engineers, hotels closed down, tourism stopped and movie theatres remained a memory for avid movie-goers.

The world had changed. 

A new-normal had set in.

The year slowly chugging towards its fag end is a little better today, protocols are in place, drugs are helping in most cases, sero-surveillance and testing are getting that magical dip in numbers, the dipping counts and increasing recoveries, unburdening the massive weight of the health care system as the economy and people movement limps back to sanity. Scientists across the world are in the race to find the magical bullet!

2020 is a year no one will forget and no one wants to remember.

Here is a list of the good, bad and the ugly!

 

WHAT WENT OUT-

Trust.

Get-togethers, weddings, parties, discotheques, social gatherings,  meetings with relatives, going out-just like that.

Movies, eating out, restaurants, bonhomie over craft beer, Gym work-outs, cross-trainers and tread-mills running simultaneously, personal trainers helping you push that last weight.

 Small and large businesses, shopping sprees in malls, crowding in favorite shops for that exclusive item, gold buying in festivals.

Short and long vacations, international travel, flying without fear, night plying sleeper coaches, packed trains.

School, college, new books, new friends, old friends, smell of brown paper and scented erasor, afternoon tiffin, canteen samosas, after- school sports coaching,  tuition, classes, cycle rides to school and back, screaming with excitement in packed buses taking them home, black-board teaching, attendance, home-work, exams and results.

Parks and gardens, beach-fronts and camping sites buzzing with butterflies and delightfully prancing kids.

Public transport, bursting-at-seams local trains and buses, gossip and house work in cramped spaces of local trains, sweaty hands hanging in tiniest spaces of trains and buses to reach home, pushing and jostling to break the serpentine queues, the ubiquitous black and yellow, now mostly white taxi.

Hugs, kisses, PDA’s, one-nights, hand-shakes, late-night adventures, long drives.

WHAT CAME IN-

The new normal.

Fear of life.

Chirping birds, flocks of crows and parrots and sparrows, an occasional leopard or a mongoose or dolphins dancing on sea waves.

Clean air, low pollution levels, less carbon di-oxide damage, green covers.

Families together in large or cramped houses, increased inter-personal communication, more time with children, maid-less homes, learning to cook, wash, iron, clean, and also familiarity breeding irritation, domestic problems and violence, separations, divorces.

Less traffic, less consumption of energy fuels.

You-tube cooking, baking, new business ideas, new survival techniques

WHAT WE LEARNT-

That majority of the work goes on without having to move into tiny cubicles called offices- in short the concept of WFH.

The idea that irrespective of availability of extremely advanced health infra-structure, if you do not respect your body, an infinitesimally small particle will destroy it.

The idea that doctors fight just like the brave men and women protecting our borders but  are human too and need to be cared for and respected just like every other element in the society.

The idea that life can go on without spending endlessly and recklessly.

The idea that basic survival needs are very minimal.

The idea that ‘big fat wedding’, gold, silver, property, assets are not the main reason of happiness.

The idea that people we love, or who love us matter more than our race to reach the top.

The idea that we are ‘mortal’ with a limited time on hand.

 YOLO.

WORDS WE LOVED, HATED, FEARED, UNDERSTOOD, USED AND NEVER WANT TO HEAR AGAIN- ( in Alphabetical order)

Antibody

Antigen

Borders sealed

Bubble

Corona

Covid care centres

Hand washing

ICMR

Lockdown- 1, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0…………

Mask

Migration

Mission begin Again

Nasal/throat swab

Pandemic

Quarantine

Rt-PCR

Social distancing

Ventilators

Virus

Webinars

WHO

Zoom meetings

 

THE ONLY WORD THE WORLD IS WAITING FOR-

VACCINE

 

Wishing all a hopeful 2021

 

 

Dr. Reina Khadilkar