Reflections on our changing lives during Covid pandemic

• Will Indians become more god-fearing, superstitious or bigoted?

• Will people be postponing marriages and raising families?

• Will we turn to science for answers?

• Will faith in political leaders and politics diminish?

• Will temples keep getting higher priority than education and health?

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The last 12 months under the shadow of Covid-19 are a blur of images. The eerie silence of deserted market places during the harsh lockdown, birds and pigeons and sundry animals taking over public spaces. Weary migrants walking on the highway and the uneaten Rotis on a railway track after sleeping migrants were mowed by a train. Familiar faces disappearing from familiar places; haunting images of people looking for food and for work; people dying in the absence of oxygen.

One also remembers images of people banging pans and pots to invoke sound therapy to drive away the virus; lighting lamps at a specific hour for a specified time with the same objective in mind. Images of people in ICUs being administered Gau Mutra, of bare bodied adult men splashing in mud and extolling virtues of mud in coping with Covid are also etched in mind.

Images of men covering themselves with coats of cow dung, and washing them with butter milk; the bearded Baba berating people for not using oxygen in the air; the prime minister decked up in his finery laying the foundation of the Ram temple; millions taking a dip on the occasion of the once-in-12 years Kumbh; motor-cycle riding raucous Bhakts out collecting donations for the Ram Temple, IPL matches in a stadium named after the PM and the Raj Path in New Delhi dug up to complete the essential service of rebuilding the central vista.

Indians will also remember this past year for the arrogance of power. Preening ministers led by the Prime Minister patronizingly offered ‘help’, money, medicines and vaccine to not just in the neighbourhood but to the ‘world’. India, the country was informed, had defeated the virus. India was Vishwa Guru and Vaccine Guru to the world. This back slapping self-adulation finally came crashing down in April with the second Covid surge and India is now gratefully accepting gifts and donations of concentrators, ventilators, oxygen and vaccine, even masks, testing kits and PPE kits from the global community. Somewhere along the way the leaders have stopped prescribing ‘kadha’ and ‘Avaleh’ to boost immunity.

Fake faith healers, Ayurvedic concoctions like Coronil promoted by the Health Minister himself and diversionary tactics like Ganga Aarti, Deepotsava at Ayodhya, Kumbh at Haridwar, tourists in Kashmir and preparation for pilgrimages have all come to a grinding halt. People living in fear for their lives are clamouring for vaccines, oxygen and hospital beds but they seem in short supply.

Each war changes lives. Covid too has. It has changed us profoundly. Relationships have changed. Elaborate rituals followed at birth, weddings and death have been discarded. Traditional feasts on such occasions are no longer possible. With even relatives and neighbours reluctant to lend their shoulder for cremations and burials, families have turned to strangers, good Samaritans and mercenaries. There is bitterness; there is anger; there are heart breaks and there are nervous break downs, insomnia and panic attacks.

Cremations and burials have become sad, solitary affairs which underscore the brutality of the times and deny people a dignified farewell. Children are forlorn and have lost their playfulness. Frontline health workers, working bravely and tirelessly, are in distress. Some have committed suicide while some may well lose their sanity. Thousands have died with no social security to look after their devastated families.

The world is watching India’s catastrophic tragedy unfold with undisguised horror. But for our ministers and leaders, it is still business as usual. ‘My Ministry of External Affairs never sleeps’, the Minister for External Affairs says smugly on TV. The Urban Development Minister takes time off to defend the indefensible central vista and remind Indians of the ancient glory of the Somnath Temple. The Indian cricket team will be travelling to England next month and the PM will lead a delegation to the G-7 summit. Business of Government never stops even if good governance does.

Rilke comes to mind. Like Europe during the war, we too seem to have reached “an empty horrible alley in a foreign town, a town where nothing is forgiven.”