Random rambling in Covid -19 times....

Yesterday is the past, tomorrow is the future, today is a gift, thats why it is called the present.... some wise person said this... a very popular and common saying... we kept saying this often, used it in a very philosophical way on FB and the likes... but I think it has finally become real in more ways than one nowadays....

We thought we had this all covered... in American lingo "I've got this", every tiny bit of our lives were planned... career, family, savings, insurance, retirement plan, even weekends, annual vacation, name it and it was all chalked out. We never ever thought of "what if" . Slowly, but surely, the digital world we had created for ourselves ensured that the "chicken littles" amongst us disappeared...

And then, as though to wipe off that self assured smirk we all had on our faces (well some of us atleast), a tiny little virus reared its royal head at the fag end of year 2019.... Covid-19, as we all (even a little kid) call it is our New year "gift"...

Now, yesterday is indeed the past, the glorious past, where we all want to run desperately to...tomorrow is a day we think of with a mixture of apprehension and slim hope and today is really the only gift we have now.... a time capsule that we wish could last forever... The 21 day lockdown feels like a pregnant pause... as though we are all mice caught in some terrible science fiction movie where we just keep running in circles in the same place...at times, we feel suffocated and at other times, we take great solace in this "secret" attic that we have all run to, while the tornado rages outside. We keep washing our hands obsessively, while we fearfully watch the numbers climb quickly...at times feeling immensely thankful that we are all "locked down" and at other times, feeling a teeny weeny envious of all the people we see on TV in the middle of all the "action". Not a single day goes past without exploring all the possible scenarios ....is it a Chinese bioweapon or is it just an ordinary infection blown out of proportion for some benefit known only to the creme de la creme of the bureaucratic world....Emotions swing wildly from feeling downright terrified, to clinging desperately to all the doctors who say that it is just another infection or that some ordinary vaccine that you have already taken is the "armour". Incredulously, we just helplessly watch all the unbelievable pictures of all the coffins that seem to pile up with frightening regularity in Italy.... wondering for the umpteenth time, where we all went wrong... how did the scenes of the play we thought we were directing change so dramatically and so quickly???? 

Then... after a few weeks...when I saw images of the dolphins in Venice, the otters in Singapore and the dolphins in our own Marine drive, the whole point began to sink in... old stories of the end of time began to resurface from the old, cobwebbed areas of my overworked mind...stories from different books held close to the soul by different religions...

Whether all these surmises are true or not, God alone knows... but deep within I feel that Covid 19 is the "reset" button that was long overdue....we all know that in comparison to the unrelenting and brutal abuse that we have subjected our "roommates" i.e. Nature to, Covid-19 is nothing... we have just crushed everything that has been in our path to a destination that even we dont have sight of.... its payback time now....yeah sure we will get through all this somehow, teeth clenched, hands folded in prayer or wringing in terror....someday this too shall pass for sure...

Right now, we are all frozen in this "comma" that the lockdown has put us in...hence my mind has moved on to the future, where we will all struggle and get past this.... the burning question in my mind therefore is, what happens after this Apocalypse? Will we all just go back to our old ways or will the world learn from this visitor?

Indeed, yesterday was the past, the past where we made ever so many errors in the pursuit of all that now seems worthless, tomorrow is the future for which we really need to use the gift of today..... to "reset" everything that will ensure tomorrow is also a gift that we look forward to!