With scientists actively exploring planets in outer space as possible colonies for earthlings, a holiday in space sounded trendy. Destination Mars seemed more like it with Mission Mangal Yaan (India), Perseverance the Rover (USA), all prospecting on the red planet. Water parks, real estates, tete-a-tete with alien neighbourhoods made perfect sales pitch ideas.
Meanwhile, I was daydreaming about what I could possibly pack in preparation for a rocket journey? What would my holiday wardrobe be on a space-station resort? With so much happening, who would have guessed that Year 2020 would catapult us to the brink of an apocalypse. No money for guessing, it is indeed the Coronavirus that was unleashed on us. A viral infection that either bound you to bed for two weeks with a nasty flu or worse, debilitated lungs, shut down internal organs and snuffed out lives. This was in January.
In the blink of an eye, the virus spread across the globe, thousands died, countries closed their borders and we cocooned within our states and cities, taking shelter in our homes. The atmosphere was surreal. Industries closed their gates to workers, retail outlets and eateries shut shop, schools and offices sent their folks home packing. Roads were eerily quiet. The skies had no airplanes jettisoning in the day through white fluffy clouds or gliding under the shiny bright stars at night. The waterways were not exempt too. Oceans were dotted with lagooned cruise ships carrying hundreds of holidaymakers, as no port permitted them to anchor, leaving them stranded in deep waters. Indeed, life had come to a standstill. With businesses closed, stock markets bombed and dived south, spinning the financial market into a tizzy. Governments worked overtime racking their brains and scratching their heads, trying to bring both the economy and life back to normal, while chaos continued to unfurl across the world.This was February.
Come March, people remained glued to their TV sets feeling helpless and vulnerable as cities competed with one another in mounting death tolls. “This is the mother of all pandemics”, screamed the media. Many wise men held heated debates and discussions to find a scapegoat or blame someone. Heads of states were phoning each other, promising help and seeking cure. Medics and labs scrambled, racing against time to find a vaccine. Hospitals had doctors and nurses donning special protective suits complete with face shields and masks, who moved around stiffly in such unwieldy, outlandish gear. Special intensive care wards were set up and fitted with oxygen stations that tried to pump life into tired lungs and weakening bodies. The ghastly, macabre scenes were as though straight from sci-fi movies.
By April, this era was renamed as COVID times. Though unplanned, we added a new COVID-19 chapter in the annals of human history by beating the Spanish Flu to insignificance when compared. Passage of time was now classified as COVID-normal, COVID-hot etc and clearly, post-COVID was saved for a distant future. Hotspots were no longer holiday destinations such as Las Vegas or Surfer’s Paradise. These were geographic locations that one stayed away from due to the high number of infection cases. There was even a new lexicon dedicated to COVID such as “corona”, “corona-ted”, “cov-idiot” etc. Social media was spewing cartoons and images on what life seemed like during COVID times. While this brought some comic relief, life was getting classified into stages - Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4 and so on, with each stage imposing more rules on people, restricting their movements in daily life. The concept of “global village” of our times was zapped in an instant and replaced by “life in isolation”.
Cooped with their families and pets, people worked from their home and lived in their pyjamas. The study at home was like a war room with multiple workstations plugged with modems and computers, the floor littered with laptops, ipads and tablets, complete with criss-crossing cables and wires. The mobile phones incessantly pinged and ponged amidst such chaos. Privacy, peace and quiet was non-existential and daily dog fights were held for desk space and internet bytes. Meanwhile, virtual world had come to shambles with millions logging to the internet at the same time, day after day. Work place meetings beamed frozen images and pixelated visages and snatches of conversation trickled through ether, after a good nine-minutes delay. The office co-worker did indeed sound like a Martian. Some even quietly slipped off for short walks in between these meetings and came back well within time to add an “aye”.
In such times of desperation came salvation in the slim but plausible form of reconnecting with family, re-discovering long, lost relatives, re-bonding with classmates ranging from preppie to Uni days, playing grandma’s board games with teens, setting up cutting-edge veggie patches in thumb-spaced backyards and so on. The local radio stations were asking us to chronicle life in the time of pandemic.
Hobbies of yore were once again back in vogue and online shopping was booming. Courier drivers were dubbed “Santa”, the only human form to hit your driveway and drop off the much-awaited parcels. As he drove off, with a wave of his hand and a twitch of a smile behind his face mask, you peeked outside, from behind the safety of your living room curtains. “Bless him!” you said, for he delivered your daily rations and more items of craft.
As May crept in, people continued to binge watch TV dramas of 1970's and 80’s. Those with pets went on a million walks. No creature was spared - the cat, the canary, the tortoise and the goldfish - all were leashed and marched across lanes and by-lanes until the dog lost its wag, the cat ran away, the tortoise refused to budge and the goldfish sank into deep depression. Many others cooked and baked their way steadily into increasing girths and expanding waistlines.The daily gastronomic exercise bled the supermarkets of staples such as flour, pasta, eggs, baking powder and yeast. At night, when the body and mind tried to rest and rejuvenate, the puny heart pumped with false bravado to reach those intrepidly growing territories and piling mounds of calories. In the midst of all this, humans almost proclaimed WWIII against each other when the humble toilet rolls went missing off retail shelves. But that is a story for another day.
The initial euphoria of escaping commutes, traffic jams, office politics and manager’s tantrums soon wore off as May slipped into June and then slowly, into July. Life had become a humdrum of predictability and repeated mundane tasks. Regular boredom set.
Social life was zilch, applying make-up was a lost art and adults had drunk their way through gallons of wine and barrels of liquor over a million family dinners and get togethers held on digital platforms such as Zoom, Skype, Facetime, IMO and the like. That it also provided hi-definition, close up shots of certain facial orifices did not help it make a very popular activity and was soon discontinued.
Partying was now holding “virtual” conversations from the couches of your hastily-tidied up living room, sipping champagne gently and biting daintily into stuffed olives. You also nodded and smiled, while dusting some imperceptible dust off your little black cocktail dress or tux, flashing a tooth or two and generally, stepping back into deep silence and jolting yourself awake just as you slipped into the arms of Orpheus.
Sweet September is now just but a song by Tony Curtis and as autumn gave way to Spring, it ushered October in Melbourne. The world is living its new-normal life - clocking statistics on death toll, comparing graphs on infection rate and praying for a miracle. Nobody talks about holidaying any more. Children are home-schooled, online. People step outside in face masks, devoid of lipstick and bereft of a smile. There is no sighting of one’s neighbours. While on those nature walks, we distance almost two-metres from fellow humans and regularly embalm our hands with minimum 72% alcohol.
Meanwhile, it is said that the animal kingdom has acquired a new sense of freedom, leading an idyllic life for almost a year, uninterrupted by humans. Perhaps, one of these days, they will drop in to check on us. If so, I am glad that I am living in the Kangaroo land and not close to the jungles of Amazon or the grasslands of Africa. Maybe I should book myself for that trip to Mars after all. It always pays to have a plan B. Now, what did I do all this while will be shared with you shortly.
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