By Subhasis Chattopadhyay –
COVID 19 has brought out the best in us, and the worst in us. Most of us can never take the freedoms we took for granted in the past; most of us realise that we are not so holy as we pretended to ourselves earlier. We can no longer hide behind the veneers of charity, pompous religiosity and sit in judgment of others. No matter who you are, reading this; rich or poor; slimily intelligent or indeed so; aged or young, Christian or Hindu; unless you are careful, your minds are already feeling the strain of being unable to have that extra peg; smoke that extra smoke. If nothing, you have begun to crack in front of your kids since you can no longer hold up before them. COVID 19, as we are slowly getting to know, does not much care whether you care for it or not. This is the reality; so what are we going to do about this? Certainly, whining will get us nowhere. Neither preaching. The best way is to use a combination of tactics to strengthen your skills and get ready for a new economy and a new mode of learning.
- Read, read and read a bit more. What will you read? Certainly not books which speak of the end of the world. We have such ends mentioned in all our major religions; including Hinduism and Buddhism. Read happy books. My contrarian reading list is being published at Prabuddha Bharata. Therefore till it is there, I cannot post it here. The key to surviving during COVID 19, and someday in the future when we are rid off this scourge, is that you read. Please, try to buy a book and actually read. Not a book on religion or philosophy or such things as butterflies. But a book of poems; a classic novel in your mother tongue or in English. Literature lifts our spirits. Fiction changes brain anatomy. Reading is therapy. This is the time to get into the happy habit of reading fiction.
-
Stop binging on the news; on Netflix and Amazon Prime. They are all numbing and useless. Instead of salaciously searching for gossip in the news, online or on the idiot box, just sit still and know that you have wasted most of your lives in watching and hearing things which do not help you in any way.
-
Stop wasting food; stop making Dalgona coffee or sourdough bread. Just learn to cook rice, make chapattis and eat them with lentils and vegetables and the occasional meat. Learn how to make traditional Indian pickles instead. One need not watch TikTok and slavishly cook what others are cooking.
-
Last but not least, please for your own sake, stop nagging your kid about studying and achieving whatever you could not achieve. In short, stop playing the victim card.
And make sure, if you are a Hindu or a Christian, to stop making a big issue of ritualistic prayers. They have their uses. But right now, you should be still and know that God knows how lucky you are to be able to afford to read this blog-post.
Subhasis Chattopadhyay was the judge for two consecutive years at an international literary fest. He teaches English at a non-community college affiliated to the University of Calcutta: Nara Sinha Dutt College, Howrah. He teaches both PG and UG classes there. He has picked up a few qualifications in Christianity and Hinduism. He is a geek who blogs. He has been reviewing Ivy League Press’s books for Prabuddha Bharata from 2010. And, as a hobby, he pursues the behavioural sciences. In this latter, he has a few more qualifications.