It’s after a while I am sitting in my room knowing very well that I can't or rather don’t want to go outside. In fact, the last time was not long ago. Just one year passed after my last accident, which tied me to bed for a month. It was hard, I had to watch others going to school, offices in the morning and coming back in the evening. I, on the other hand, looked at my laptop and tried to do something there to clock hours in the office. It's had. Staying compulsorily at home is hard.
This brought back memories of pooja time in my childhood. In many parts of India, all days of Navratri are celebrated. In Kerala which sits on the west and politically left celebrates the last two days - Navratri and Vijaya Dashami. In Navratri, we give books at the nearest temple for pooja. Once I give the books at the temple, then I am not supposed to read anything. In school days, I used to give books earlier; so that no one will ask me to study.
It’s not that I don't like to read. But on those days, I thought, if I give books early then I can do whatever I wanted to do. No need to study. Unfortunately, it didn't work that way. After I submit the book, I get a strange desire to read something - a chapter, a novel anything. Most often I ended up reading something by mistake on Navratri day.
After Navratri its Vijaya Dashami, a day where I am supposed to do the studying. But after getting the books from the temple (after completing morning pooja and waiting in the crowd for some time and eating sugarcane) I am exhausted to do anything but playing cricket. I simply write all the alphabets from Malayalam, English, and Hindi on the sand and read one paragraph from each text and ran way for playing cricket.
Now in the days of Corona (Covid19) most of us are stuck to home; secretly have a desire to roam around. After seeing the empty roads who don’t want to take a bike or car or cycle and roam around. Those who came from abroad might have the desire to see all friends and families. For some of us, swim against the established doctrine is in our bone (or blood?); we are not satisfied status quo. We want to change it, break it. We are not happy that we were told (advised, recommended, asked, requested… you can use all fancy terms) to stay inside.
We all have the desire to break the chain and fly. We are not satisfied with being tied to a post and being told to stay quiet. It’s not in the blood of free people.
But as some wise person said long ago, desperate time requires desperate measures. Being a social animal, we humans must agree on a social contract with fellow beings. i.e, in this case, we as an individual should not be a reason for harm to other human beings. We don't have that right to cause harm to others. So even if it’s hard and difficult to stay indoors please do that. Make sure that you as a person are not in any way responsible for the spread of the virus. This is a fight; a fight for the very survival of humanity across the globe as we know it. So, let's do our contribution as well.
Stay indoors; and if you can't, keep a social distance. Make sure that we are not the reason for viruses’ survival.
Sajeev
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