Friends - Greetings to all,

Physicist Marie Curie: "Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

Two hundred years before coronavirus, the The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had some poignant metaphorical advice to do your part in this pandemic, when he wrote, "Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean."

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Knowing that whatever I am penning down, you all will be well aware of it but thought I would share it with you all, as the old saying goes sharing your sad thoughts will lessen the pain which I am sure all of us are undergoing.

What we are feeling is that life will not be the same for many of us now after the lockdown and having to continue to maintain social distancing!

When the Covid-19 pandemic bids goodbye to us, life will not be the same. Everyone will have to take precautionary measures in his/her life in the future. Businesses will take a long time to come back on track. As far as students are concerned, their syllabus may be cut short. What makes me sad is that the underprivileged and the poor will get poorer after the pandemic is over, that is if it is over.

After the pandemic has run its course, we — men, women and children — will develop more emotional proximity towards our kin. Bonds may become stronger and communal intolerance may end hopefully. The consumption pattern will certainly change in favour of simplicity and restraint. All said and done, it will alter our lifestyle for the better. 

Positive outcomes are possible, too. One is that the shutdown has caused a major improvement in air quality. People throughout the world are breathing cleaner air, and many are seeing the stars, mountain peaks, Ganga water is cleaner as which has never been before. If we treat the shutdown as an opportunity, perhaps we will understand the effects of human activity on the environment and take permanent measures to keep the planet healthy. The pollution-free atmosphere that we are enjoying now will be back to where it has always been before the lockdown and the animals which had come out into the open and were merrily having jaywalk on the roads as which were always heavily populated and also the chirping of the birds at the crack of dawn would be over as they would all go back to their den due to the comeback of pollution. There is a possibility of NGOs changing their focus on promoting nature as the lockdown has made us understand the importance of nature. Henceforth, when it comes to travelling, the focus will be on going to such places as will bring us close to nature.

We all know that the coronavirus has already changed the world and it will not be the same again at least for years to come. Our social life will have many new norms, especially in our social functions or outings. There would be a big change in our lifestyle and habits.

But I beg to differ that despite the lockdown slowly but surely things will revert to earlier positions. Even during the lockdown period, one could witness how the protocols were being violated. For example, large groups of people standing in queues outside banks and liquor shops who were not followings the social distancing and other norms. We may be going through testing times, but people tend to forget the bad phase very soon. They forget that by them being safe they are helping others to be safe. Despite the crisis, people just tend to forget. A few years ago, when carcinogenic elements were found in noodles and a reputed soft drink, almost everyone stopped consuming noodles and cold drinks. After a few months, people started purchasing them again and are still having them daily. I believe once the present crisis is over, people will soon forget social distancing, wearing of face masks and washing hands repeatedly. It is the ultimate truth and we must know that this pandemic has been added to our list of sicknesses and we must just go by the norms to safeguard all. Whether or not social distancing enters our “collective mind” will largely depend on how the current pandemic plays out.

Adversity is the best teacher. The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us how fragile and unpredictable our lives are, and this goes not only for one but for the very rich and the poorest of the poor as this pandemic does not discriminate, it just takes its course. Post lockdown, almost all countries of the world face a slowdown in their economies, besides facing business disruption, travel obstruction, public seclusion, etc. it has brought a paradigm shift in thinking and working. Institutions around the globe have switched to online modes of working while global mobility has come to a standstill. On the other hand, many employers may decrease their staff, leading to unemployment. Moreover, the work-from-home culture will stay. Yes, but the biggest enemy of mankind — arrogance — has disappeared giving way to humility and patience. Even confirmed atheists have turned theists overnight.

The extended lockdown and social distancing has had a devastating effect on the mental health of Indians and has had a huge impact on family dynamics. Those who are in control of things felt even more powerful during the lockdown, knowing that the less powerful have nowhere to go.

There are people who have never felt more alone in their life and even now just reading and hearing about coronavirus causes some people to fret over whether they will get infected. And this just increases anxiety, panic attacks and depression. Loneliness is the worst enemy of people with pre-existing mental health problems. Those with anxiety disorders have been hit hard by the lockdown.  It has even led to people committing suicide.

The COVID-19 situation has triggered or worsened symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD can make people go overboard with cleaning: They keep washing their hands, sanitizing door handles and cleaning milk packets and vegetables etc.

Guided workshops for exercise, mindfulness and spirituality are also a great way to keep yourself busy and fill your mind with happy and positive thoughts.

One thing is for sure, COVID-19 will change our lives forever. The lockdown and isolation could be a prelude to what the future holds. It is time we learned to adapt to a new world where social distancing and digital learning are becoming the new normal.  It not only impacts on everyday life, but it also poses a challenge to our existential existence; that is, how we understand what social life should be.

If a reliable treatment or an effective vaccine is developed and the threat is removed, social distancing will be less urgent and may fade from public consciousness. but if there is no vaccine or treatment, society could change dramatically in negative ways. For example, we could see medical issues becoming more politicized and people stigmatized for having COVID-19. On the other hand, if the threat persists, social distancing will remain at the forefront of our thinking, potentially becoming a source of social tension.

We need to keep in mind that economic desperation will force many people to ignore distancing practices, and many people simply refuse to distance. It is hard to predict the future, but we know from past epidemics that life returned to normal once the threat passed because the forces driving us to return to the “old normal” are strong. If social distancing remains a necessity it may become another expression of our current political divisions: those who distance and those who don’t.

Much like the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, our society will probably adjust following this global crisis, hopefully, all of them will be for the better. Many people may blame those with the disease as being the cause of having to curtail their usual activities. We have already seen discriminatory behaviour targeting people who have been falsely blamed for causing the pandemic. It is not the fault of those who have been affected by this awful virus, their immune system could be below normal. Another negative change could be in residential patterns. Viral diseases thrive on people living very close to one another. People with more money may abandon densely populated urban areas, leaving cities with greater concentrations of disadvantaged people, those who likely to be highly vulnerable to COVID-19 because their jobs do not allow them to work at home or they have fewer social and medical protections, such as insurance or savings, to help them weather the storm.

Another positive outcome is that we are learning the importance of other people in our lives. Isolation is hard for most of us and being cut off from others has reminded us to stay close to the people we care about. The crisis has taught us the importance of reaching out to friends and loved ones, and perhaps we will stay close to them. The worry is that when the crisis ends, we will stop talking as frequently. However, we have learned that a lot of our work can be done via distance. Should the crisis end, and these practices become permanent, we may experience a net loss in social contacts. We could retreat to an even smaller social world than before the crisis. Virtual relationships are not a healthy substitute for real, genuine human contact.

But what I have seen is people, being more expressive and better in their communications. They are more open and not merely exchanging pleasantries; they are relying on tech-dependent communication to express their emotions and ideas. Hopefully, this will give us liberty and more open once face-to-face communication will return. On that note, I hope we are learning to appreciate those who work in essential jobs, as they provide our vital services to our collective well-being, and we should not take them for granted and we need to be grateful to them for being there and not caring about their own safety and family time.

In conclusion: I am sure you will agree with me that we should all try to spread the word and explain to those who are still ignorant of this pandemic only thinking that God will help them to be safe. Well they must be made to understand that God helps those who help themselves.

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” – Nelson Mandela

Better a thousand times careful than once dead.  ~ Proverb

Parsan Narang

Calcutta

17^th June 2020