Living through another ‘Groundhog day’ where the events repeat everyday in your confined indoors; a never-ending loop of events that seems eternal. Argh..You wake up and peep out the window to see if anyone is celebrating a magical end to the pandemic; I can then choose to not go out as opposed to being forced not to. Get the difference?
Today, everyday seems like just another day. Nothing new, nothing groundbreaking and nothing magical. Apart from news about incremental covid fatalities, blasts, plane accidents or floods that bring out the message “you can’t hide,” there is nothing fresh. I like how few channels and shows telecasted happy news during the initial phase in an attempt to keep our spirits high. I think even they went, “Nah man, not anymore.” The routine of waking up, accomplishing your daily chores and attempting to do something useful (which goes in vain) constitutes an everyday sequence. There are various stages of covid evolution and I guess we are in the mid-zone where the indoor lifestyle has been accommodated but we are slowly tending to the zone of “Arghhh get me out.” You might have already covered painting, cooking, baking and eating (no not eating), so what now? Anything new that you haven’t tried? Google is suggesting to either clean my wardrobe and desk or to repair my clothes. Yeah, sure Google; just what i need: more work!
In Anton Chekov’s ‘The Bet’ a person willingly goes into confinement for 15 years in order to win a bet that proves a life sentence is better than a death sentence. He lives the life of a prisoner in a room with zero human contact. He is provided with whatever he needs except any information related to the outside world. Mind you, no internet! While his discovery and journey through those years is covered in the story, I wish more emphasis was put in the first year of his confinement. How did he get through it and what was going on because the story mentions how insane he had become during the first year. That information could come in handy in our current situation; or not.
I want to make it clear that I am an indoor person and the concept of ‘social distance’ has my approval. However, a prolonged confinement, no matter how big of an introvert you are, is annoying. While it is painful to stay put, let us not once doubt the efficacy of the whole act. This too shall pass, maybe longer than expected, but it surely will!
I am imagining a fictional scenario where the virus takes a day’s break, say, every three months. Similar to the movie ‘The Purge’ where any crime is legal for 12 hours every year; for 24 hours, the virus will die and everyone can step out defying covid rules, let’s call it ‘The Splurge.’ The already infected ones will be non contagious on that particular day. You can go anywhere, meet anyone and celebrate. Life will be back to normal. Wouldn’t that be a breather? Probably a refresher to keep you going until the next quarter? Right? Umm.. wait.. Did I say life will be back to normal on that day? In that case, I’ll probably stay inside, like my kind of ‘normal’ day.
