Living with COVID-19:Notes to my future self

Illustration by Manasa

It is chaos all around and we are all ears for what is going on around. 

What this situation demands are a little brain and logical thinking.

I'm thanatophobic! I'm afraid that I will die due to a lack of oxygen to breathe or drowning in water or due to an environmental crisis. These fears have made me care about the environment around me or at least pretend that I care about it. Now, chocking due to the new virus got added to my long list of fears. Despite my fear, I'm very neutral about COVID-19, for the reason that I can't do anything except staying at home. 

The lock-down has helped the nature to heal itself, I see clear skies with brightly dotted stars at night and the morning skies are less hazy. A couple of days ago, the moonlight through our bedroom window was as bright as a spotlight. The leaves are greener, birds seem to be plenty, the news channels broadcasting about the animals roaming freely in the cityscapes are heartwarming, mushrooms are popping up along the roadside after the mango showers and the lichens have started appearing on the trees. The pictures depicting the air quality improvement in metro cities, mountain ranges visible from far distances and the Ganges flowing blue and pure, I wish that stays forever.  Now I feel that I must restart riding the bicycle to work after the lockdown is lifted, I can be of little help to the environment. One of my fear is now healing the other! Not sure if I'm supposed to rejoice or frown. Mother nature is unpredictable, she has her own ways and she will heal.

It is about 20 days since the lockdown, the rise in the number of cases is exponential. Everything has come to a hard halt. The news aired is very depressing and the newspapers carry pictures of souls crying. The situation is terrible, it also looks like it is going out of control. Between all these, we need emotional support and a little hope that we will all get through this. Remember how a campfire warms and slightly boosts one's courage, we need that now, we need to feel that we all will get through this together. Humans feel secured with the other around, we need that strength, we need a mental belief that we can live through this.

We coincidentally came down to Mysuru on the day of the lockdown. I cannot imagine how we would have survived there. We would have missed the family here so badly. 

Lockdowns are always uncomfortable

 
If I have put on weight, which now seems definite, or if I do not fit into my clothes, please blame the ladies at home who cook up some delicious meals 3 times a day. We have started spending quality time with each other. We sit down together on the floor to have our meals, we talk, we communicate, we have laughed and we have recalled some memories together. We have started waving at the neighbors and wishing them well. I also wished that my grandparents were around. My one-year-old niece has been the entertainer around the home, we cannot get our eyes out of her cuteness. I have taught her to make faces and she has picked it skillfully. My average weekly working hours has reduced to 9 hours from 11 hours, yet completing all the assigned work. WFH has been bliss so far. I completed reading a book and picked the second one, walked indoors a full marathon distance and trying my best to stretch muscles doing few Soorya Namaskaras in the morning.

I see myself, do you?

 
In the initial few days, I followed the news like my dad, I knew the latest at any time of the day. After a few days when the outbreak became a forest fire, I shutdown myself from every news hitting my ears. I only followed one, to stay at home. I did not listen to anybody, I followed what seemed more logical to me, I was not stupid, I just stayed at home. I behaved like an outcast, I didn't accept any of the challenges which were pushed on social media, I didn't fall into the celebrities' promotional videos where they posed to be home and do the chores, I didn't even post a selfie, I didn't do any daredevil stuff by stepping out of the home to see how many are not on the streets.

I feel that I'm more than privileged, we have more of everything to have the most comfortable lockdown at home. We are really thankful for that. My family is safe, we have regular supplies of everything like the usual days. Only our outdoor activities are cut down. The lockdown is not the same for everyone, the ones at the bottom of the pyramid are having a tough time and it is visible. In the corner of my mind, I feel guilty, staying somewhere towards the top of the pyramid, I have created a difference, which I cannot remove. I feel a sense of helplessness.

As days progress, I feel more insecure. I do not know to grow my food, I do not know to stitch my clothes, I cannot fix a leaking water pipe or the wastewater drain, I cannot repair something which is broken beyond a point, I do not know how to cut my hair or I do not know to repair a motorbike. I have moved far from the basics. The people who are skilled with these basic life skills are at the bottom of the pyramid and they are in trouble. If the lockdown continues for 6 months or more, let us hope it doesn't, and we are cut down from the basic needs, I do not think it would be comfortable at all. I do not see my education or my current job would help me through that. I will have to learn basic skills and change my lifestyle drastically. All this makes me feel that I have been living in a false made up society, which promises everything but takes away the basic living skills.

I'm an introvert, I rarely like long discussions with people. My phone calls end within a minute on average. These times have helped me open up and speak. I spoke to a vegetable vendor, asked him the whereabouts, spoke to a grocery shopkeeper, asked him about his wellness. There is a conscious effort to focus more on what is important and many things have come down to its basics. Once we all get through this, I guess we will see more of 'humans'. Wishing all of us good luck.

What doesn't change after a year of pedaling to work

I am not a cyclist, I'm just a commuter! I just don't like to label myself with something more than I do! 20kms is how much far I get to pedal everyday to commute to work and back. I had cycled before, I had a vague idea of how difficult or how easy it would be to commute the 20kms everyday. It was just an idea then, that was even before I had a first hand experience of the Namma Bengaluru traffic and the infamous Electronic city road.

I bought a decent pre-owned MTB bike and it took 2 visits to the workshop to get it ready for an uninterrupted daily commute. The bike was brought from Mysuru after a month we settled down in Bengaluru. It was peak of the rainy season, the roads here gets clogged with water and traffic. It was the enthusiasm at first, the rising eyebrows for riding 20kms everyday next and then the feel good factor which has kept me a commuter so far and will be a commuter in the coming years.

I weighed a 100+, lazy as pig and the highest fitness I had was to take the stairs at work and home. Neither I look like a stick figure after riding 1000 odd kms in the last year nor I have a fancy ride from the money I have saved by not paying the fuel bills. But definitely I feel much healthier and the fitness level has increased tremendously. I could easily finish the Annapurna Base camp trek and that is all I wanted.

The initial couple of months of bicycle commute wasn't easy at all. I had soar muscles for days, I would sweat like a pig and I had to carry a spare tee to change into after and before the ride, my hunger grew exponentially and the more time I spent cycling, I had to inhale burnt gases though my bicycle doesn't emit anything. Yet, I had no reason to quit! The days when I don't get to ride bicycle to work, I find my self slogging through the entire day and my muscles feel cramped. Commuting on bicycle had become a habit and my body had started adjusting to it and expecting it everyday.

Nobody likes a lady driver and a bicycle commuter on the roads! Yes, I have several instances of being yelled at or those stares by the other people on the road as if his/her eye ball would pop out right there. May be they feel that I'm slowing them down or they just cannot accept the fact that I have switched to a better option. I always avoid being a jerk by not responding to any taunts on the road.

I photograph birds and I hug trees, I'm afraid of my death in an Apocalypse caused by destroying our environment and so I treat it with utmost respect and also be a little more  responsible. Oh yes, I'm the most selfish person and now you know the reason I ride a bicycle. I have brought down my carbon footprint and I flaunt with pride for every kilometer I ride.

Breaking the silence

In this fast paced world, we are all going blind at the subtle magic of life around us! If you are reading this, you are probably in front of a trivial screen, which you are, while just outside the window, there so much happening. The changing shadow of a tree over the day, the wind shuffling the leaves, chirping birds, flowing clouds, the beauty of the silent cycles in nature and so many mazes of life are all unnoticed. Slow down, breathe, enjoy the smell of the air and look at the life around, which we are part of, which we seem to have started missing. We have slowly started behaving carelessly about systems we naturally belong to and worry too much about abstract-meaningless-linear systems we have created ourselves and have started believing that it is the only way of life.

Everything in the natural system is connected but we have just started pretending that we can survive in isolation. You are connected and also part of the dinner you had last night and the food is connected and part of the elements and so on, that is the simplest way I can tell that everything is connected. And there is a cycle too, your food and you being the food (while alive or after dead), everything is a cycle. It would probably not work for long if we break out of the cycle and try to find an alternative. It is our stupidity and we will fail and we will fail miserably. The only way we live is to accept that we are part of the natural system, everything is connected and respect that interconnection and we live as part of the cycle. Otherwise, the natural system will find a million other ways to thrive without us.

The 600 odd trees which were cut down in Mangaluru city was probably not a big deal at all. We have a much larger forest to back it up and hundreds of alternatives. The tree huggers in the city cry their hearts out when there are only last few trees left which are taller than 50 feet and an 80 year old tree branches were trimmed in the heart of the city. Everything is fine, because it was masked in the name of the development. Shouldn't the development be an inclusive plan? We are just cutting down the interconnections and breaking the cycles, which we are not realizing right now. This is not a sustainable development, we are cutting ourselves out of the cycle and nature is powerful enough to run without us, we are the ones who will suffer.

News coverage - The Hindu, TOI

The sad sight of the tree felling at Padil

Quoting one of Tagore’s poem from ‘The Gardener’ -

"I plucked your flower, O world!

I pressed it to my heart and the thorn pricked.

When the day waned and it darkened, I found that

the flower had faded, but the pain remained."

We have assumed that the world is ours and have been plucking all the flowers out of it. We cannot pluck all the flowers from the world, it will hurt us back someday for sure.

It is high time to act, no matter how small but should be a sensible act. We haven't lost all our human nature yet, it is just shadowed by an illusion. I am sure we can all connect back to the natural systems and realize we are part of it. We can all do much better at this!!