What Corona's taught me so far...

You can be as rich as you like throw Gatsbystyle parties on gigantic frontlawns if youre rich and strangely generous too The fact is if youre also playing host to a nikamma novel virus called Corona that can only luxuriate inside a carelessly hospitable human being anywaymdashyoure instantly staringat healthscare the size of Buckingham PalaceDoesnt matter if youre the son of the Queen of British Empire youre certainly setting The butlers better set than you are Until you rise again of course As Prince Charles immediately did That deathdisease is the ultimate human leveler is a given Whats so special in a onceinacentury sort of way that the Coronavirus may be crooning about and that isnt so hard to getThat for once nature has actively profiled and bizarrely discriminated against the rich and famous Of all massy nonlifestyle diseases this is the first I know that arrived on fancy international airlinesmdashchilling with hosts being served hot food by an even hotter cabin crewSurely Im making this sound cooler than it is Also dont wish to overstate the irony or poetic justice of Africa shutting down its borders for Europeansmdashbeing the outbreaks earliest response While having landed through international terminals the virus could become uninvited guest among millions in big cities who live as workingclass migrantsThey began racing towards compressing themselves into interstate buses and unreserved compartments of trains heading back home Because when businesses are shut the lack of work in a city is a worse disease than a virus could ever spreadHow would they manage though No the others didnt think of that Because at heart one has submitted to the natural ability of humans to somehow adjust Adjust like resilience is that innate superpower that develops inversely proportional to ones income Governments know this better than idiots who vote them inYou cant expect social distancing for 50 per cent of Mumbai when theyve physically adjusted themselves to live inside each others armpits already If there were sixfeet distancing in slums the last man of Mankhurd would be standing in Madh Island and several sliding sideways to Mazagaon What if this rich mans disease makes it to poor mens cages and returns to haunt the posh caves againAgain for the first time I know the proverbial White Town shut its doors to workers from Native Town as a lastditch attempt at ensuring socialdistancing that would be beneficial for both What did the welloff learn from having locked themselves inside apartments with no domestic helpWith their minds casually wandering towards more existential issues alternating between jhadupocha and dishwashing surely some mustve helplessly wondered about larger priorities of countries run by humans that had enough to make nuclear bombs but hardly much left to build nursing homesWhile proudly Instagraming their cooking plus cleaning skills did they also recalibrate salaries of their nannies who perform the same tasks not only at their home and a few others but their own every dayNope am last the last cynic to believe that with this global pandemic shall emerge the postcoronial man with a largehearted worldview defined more by empathy less by economics of demand and supplySure Sadhgurutype lessons on how we can afford to slow down and share are worth collectively pondering deeply overmdashnow that we have time to stand and stare Eventually would we care Theres nothing in history to support optimism Let alone the fact that we arent good with learning from history at allHowever unless youve been attached to a VR set linked mentally to an outside world youd require perceptive skills of a turkey to not grasp living mostly inside a single roommdashhow little we need to survive rather well And not in just in terms of space but also that How it basically boils down to food bed and companionship There is another thing equally importantmdashart to entertain ourselvesAmong the affluent ones least hit by a lockdown youll notice are those culturally inclined As against folk with no interests besides in ways to make money for their employer Which is good for capitalism alright But that confinement has no use forYou can already observe people going back to watching shows from the 80s and 90s Ramayan Byomkesh Bakshi etc on Doordarshan encouraging kids to do the samemdashachinglonging for times in their lives that seemed so much simpler I on the other hand like many of you cant have enough of pictures and prose movies and shows new and old from across the world on my cellphone all through the day A lifetimes not enough to devourGlobalisation has caused the current borderless problem Globalisation is helping many deal with it Since enough netas and news anchors asking me for strong reccos on what to catch online yeah right I suggest you should have this Pakistani film on Netflix called Cake and eat it tooMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to 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