Living with a ‘Ghost’ of Covid-19 and how?!!!
3 min read
R Chandra Prakash
Mysuru: When we were kids we some how got introduced to the concept of a Ghost. It was something elusive, something all pervasive, something diabolic, something fearsome and something that lived in the darkness of nights.
If this Ghost made some of us into a acclaimed cowards, it also got associated with someone’s claim to valour. It also got linked with uncomparable beauty of Mohini.
As we grew up some of these fears and fanciful ideas got vanished into the oblivion.
However, what we are going through for the past couple of months all over the world, and a few weeks in our own country is no different from the Ghost we lived with as kids.
The entire country has got locked out, ever busy roads, transport systems, and the markets are wearing a deserted look. By and large public is self quarantined in their own houses. Even to get essential goods like milk and medicine has become a very difficult decision to make. Groceries and toiletries which we used to buy so casually and at the heck of it, have become essential commodities of sorts. It is more due to the fear of touch , that fearsome “Touch”, rather than the development of some sort of ‘vairagya’.
The world over untouchability is not only accepted but also enforced. What a turn of events!!!
Sanitizer has become a magical solution, which has vanished from the shelves of the pharmaceutical shops. Whatever is available in the name of Sanitizer is now acceptable, irrespective of price! No one is complaining of fleecing or exploitation! We got two expensive bottles from Amazon, the content stinks like hell, but as there is no alternative we are using it. Hard times remove value barriers, no doubt!!
Even people like us who are only two-some at home – a geriatric husband and a senior citizen wife (!) – are afraid of going too close of each other. Lack of gardener for our quite a big garden has forced me to do this duty. Within few days my diabetic body has sapped me of whatever energy it had. Now going very piece- meal and very very slow. My better half is suffering from lack of very helpful maid. Her fettish for cleanliness and hygiene is sapping her energy and of course her patience [with me!!].
Don’t know how many times I intensely wash my hands with soap and apply sanitizer luxuriously in a day. This when neither of us go out and no one and nothing comes into our house!! Fear of our own shadows, as if!!! To conserve available vegetables and groceries their usages is reduced to bare minimum, conserving them for the future. We are living a dreadful life.
If this is not a Ghost then nothing else is !!
This dreadfulness is hightened by the news channels which are blaring all sorts of extrapolated and interpolated garbage as Breaking News. Breaking News my foot, they are frying our brains, putting it on Fire!!
Thanks to Ramayan and Mahabharat, this Ghost is kept away to some extent. So also thanks to the galvanizing ideas of our beloved patriotic Prime Minister like Clapping and Lighting of Lamps. And not to forget the Netflix and Prime Videos which fill up the gap of a few hours left by Ramayan and Mahabharat!
So we are living with a Ghost of Covid-19 indeed. And centuries to come we will remember this period. That of course, if yet another Ghost [or is it China ?] does not replace the Covid-19!!!
– Team Mysoorunews
Mysooru News
