BENGALURU: Blackout!” I have seen it in December 1971. As sirens blared to warn about hostile planes coming close to the city, all lights went off. The insides of glass-panelled windows were lined with black or brown paper to prevent light from filtering out to give any hints to enemy pilots. People remained home, only to venture out when the ‘all-clear’ was sounded.
The current unprecedented ‘lockdown’ has brought back some faint memories of the ‘blackout’ days, albeit without sirens and shading of windows and a whole lot of other to justify this being ‘unprecedented’. But will there be an ‘all-clear’ for this? I wonder! I believe World War III is on. Wimbledon has been cancelled for the first time since World War II.
But for once, it is not Man Vs Man, as the entire mankind is fighting a non-living protein virus which is on a rampage, claiming lives of humans across nations. The Man Vs Man war hvwas been relegated to inside homes now, because it is lockdown time – in living rooms and bedrooms of households where humans are forced to remain with each other following government diktats to take shelter from the virus.
The unprecedented nature of this lockdown is that previous pandemics did not offer a wide range of options to kill boredom at home, as does this one. People have almost everything at their disposal – including working from home – and if they wish something more, that too is gettable via online and home delivery.
But the range of choice itself becomes the source of conflicts in many houses. One wants one thing while the other wants something else, and the third wants a combination of what the other two want, but with a little addition for flavour of ingenuity.
There’s always a recipe for conflict. Social distancing does not solve this problem. Choices are expressed, and the distance over which they are expressed hardly poses obstacles for them.
Social distancing apart, there is a belief – and some strongly believe – that 2020-end is set to see a baby-boom. Believers throw logic while explaining that when husbands and wives remain home on endless stretches of time as in the current lockdown, it is bound to happen. Some even draw support from similar predictions floated after the November 9, 1965 North-east US and Canada power outage when thousands of men and women across regions were stuck in elevators, which became scenes of action – which is said to have caused a ‘baby boom’ in August-September 1966, although its link to the power shutdown was never verified.
However, under lockdown – and the reasons for which this lockdown is ordered – clear thinking would reveal that if baby-boom ever happens, social distancing and what is stood for was tossed out of the window by these copulating couples. For all you know, the birth-rate is set to dip by end 2020. Baby boom or not, one thing I am deadly sure – a lot many Bruce Lees, Jim Kellys, Chuck Norrises and Jackie Chans will be out on the streets once lockdown is lifted, what with overexposure to so many action movies of that ilk which people are watching across the board. I am also all prepared to respond to someone calling me with a Texan accent, and to turn and see an old buddy with a hip-flask after a month of exposure to films from the Wild West!
Nirad Mudur
Senior Assistant Editor niradmadur@ newindianexpress.com