COVID-19: India Lockdown Day 2

These days, getting up in the morning without a hint of cold, cough or fever is a great respite. And when you get a glimpse of the red sky and the shining clouds with a hint of the Sun rising up, it is a real blessing. The Day 2 i.e. 26^th March 2020 began on this note. I am lucky, many of our brethren are not so in the days and nights gripped by COVID-19. Everywhere it is, in about 190 countries now!

It is a well-known fact that those with lower body immune system have very high chances of getting infected with it on exposure. Thus, to keep it at bay, it is important to keep ourselves in the best of health – physical as well as mental. If you never bothered earlier, it is high time now to build up your immune by eating healthy, maintaining hygiene, exercising well and maintaining your mental cool by way of yoga and meditation. It is no more idealistic talk now, instead, it is need of the hour and a vital requirement. And, with the lockdown – there are no lame excuses like ‘I don’t have time’, et al. I like my morning walks and since Janata Curfew day, I have deserted the colony campus and begun walking on the terrace – at least 6000 steps a day. I cover my terrace in approximately 60 steps, so 100 laps of the terrace I am doing daily. Before the lockdown, anyone seeing me doing 100 laps on the terrace would have certainly considered me insane and I didn't do it also.  But, meaning changes with context and time; my switchover to terrace walk makes lot of sense.

Today being my turn for attending the Office to take care of important business needs, I carried my lunch box for the very first time in my career. I Took special care to not touch anything that doesn’t belong to me. Carried Johnson Buds to press the buttons of the lift and being extra cautious, before using it I ensured to load it with hand sanitizer – so that neither the bud gets infected nor it infects the lift buttons. Save self, save others – should be the motto – always. The repeated advice of the Air-Hostesses to the mothers: ‘Put the oxygen mask first, before putting on to your child’ makes more sense now!

As expected, sadly, the number of cases of positive COVID-19 infections are increasing and is close to 700 now for India. And number of deaths inching towards 20. With every passing day; looking into our population density, joint families, huge migrant population, poverty and poor hygiene; this number is going to increase at a faster rate despite all efforts being taken. Thus, a little bit of casual approach by even a small percentage of the population would see skyrocketing of these numbers. Let’s do our best to contain it by religiously following the directions on the subject and educate people around us who are yet taking it lightly.

The directions by the Central and State Governments to the companies, contractors and individuals for payment of salary to their contractual workers, casual labours, maidservants for their absence during this testing time is highly commendable and speaks volumes about their empathy towards one and all.

Before I close, I would like to mention that the birds and street dogs are finding difficult to get water and food as those who used to serve them out of empathy are unable to do so. If we can do something about it in a safe way, let’s do it.

Let’s remain positive, let’s remain committed. That’s the ‘Mantra’ of the moment.

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