BENGALURU : It isn’t still light as I write this and the skies have opened with thunder, lightning and a relentless rain. Everyone in my home, including my dogs, is fast asleep and so is the neighbourhood. The birdsong that would punctuate the quiet is still. The power has gone off as it does in these parts the moment a drop of rain falls. My only companion is a wasp that flew in through the open window seeking the light cast by my angle poise lamp. I am alone as alone can be.
In these days of lockdown the world over, as everyone is learning to contain their lives within their tiny cocoons of safety, I see and hear this incredible human need to make contact with the outside world so reminiscent of space movies where earthlings seek to make contact with extra-terrestrials. Social media hasn’t buzzed as it has in the last several weeks. There is a deep desire to share the mundane as much as the significant, and perhaps it is human nature to want others to bear witness to how we live out our days.
There is one other dimension to it.
We are not used to having the luxury of time anymore. We are not used to a routine that is immune to the world outside our walls. As much as cabin fever there is a sense of guilt that plagues us into doing something with this time weighing us down. So we do all we can to make us feel relevant despite the circumstances. And so the lockdown has turned us all into home chefs and musicians, writers and gardeners, tree lovers and movie makers, history buffs and movie aficionados; virtual museum hoppers and such like.
Much as we crave for social contact with the rest of the humanity, I am not entirely sure that it has tapped into our humane vein. In our cozy lives where delivery boys bring essentials to our gates and where the fear of infection is minimal because we have everything we need, including some savings, we sometimes fail to see and understand what someone less fortunate than us must be going through.
At the most dismal end of the spectrum are the migrant workers and daily wage earners whose lives have dissipated into endless fear as they struggle to survive. And in the middle of this social chart of haves and have-nots lies the bulwark of Indian society — people with occupations that have no takers anymore.
The lockdown has robbed them of a regular job as much as it has chipped away at their dignity. Each time my tailor or the flower seller I frequent sends me a WhatsApp message, I know it is to remind me that they exist. Each morning when my staff call me, I know that they are making sure that their jobs are safe. And that they have to do this cripples me with an emotion that is as much sorrow, and anger on their behalf.
Our lives will never be the same again. Something as basic as a hug will never be spontaneous. We are going to have to develop a whole new lexicon on how to display emotion. Until such time we all develop herd immunity, it will be the reign of emojis. Perhaps this is the best time for us do a reconnaissance on what it means to be human and humane. And to learn that solitude is not such a bad thing if we can look beyond our own lives and let our gaze encompass the rest of the world. That it is possible to be the lamp in the lighthouse and guide lives into safe waters without actually stepping out there.