Life in Times of Corona - Revival of the Blog

24th March 2020, 8:10 PM - Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi in his address to the nation announced with folded hands, that a strict nation wide lock down is being imposed across the nation, in wake of the covid-19 pandemic outbreak, wef 25th March 00:00AM for a period of 21 days i.e.till 14th April 2020.

Take a look at one of the newspaper front page the next monring - HT New Delhi Edition 25th March

By mid of March 2020, much of the developed western world particularly Italy and Spain were under unprecedented crisis caused by the spread of Corona Virus and China, where it all started sometime in December 2019, had just started to contain the situation. Cases in USA, UK, South Korea and Iran were on the rise. With the most advanced health care systems in world struggling to save its citizen, India had to take preventive measures before the situation got out of hand.

In a democratic nation state of 1.3 billion plus people, who belong to an unparalleled demographic diversity and have relatively low income levels, enforcing complete lock down was a big big challenge. The PM's address worked it's magic and except those involved with medical care and other essential services remained home under the lock down.

With a lot of spare time to spend at home, everyone around the world was coming up with ideas on how to remain productive and / or occupied. I had my own ideas. And that's when the thought came that I can revive my blog. There content was happening right in front.

Before we go ahead - here is a disclaimer - I am a rookie writer. I could draft reports, letters and presentation but writing is not my forte - fiction or non-fiction. However, to make up for it and hopefully make this reading interesting & engaging, it am writing this as a narration, like someone is listening the story from the author, many years after the event or as if someone is reading a daily diary years later.

The narration will have an unique geographical point of view, a place which holds high importance historically as well as demographically. My hometown is Gaya, which is a renowed place of worship for Hindus and Buddhists and I am currently based at Patna, home to some of the most developed ancient world empires and currently a fairly large developing city in Bihar, a state with over 120 million people and one of the "economically less developed" regions across the planet/ There will be some stories specific to this geography, but these days world is a smaller place. Corona is a live example how almost each life on this earth is interconnected.

The events are true and not fiction, all the liberty I have taken is to not disclose full names of the charachter as they arrive in the story. I WRITE AS IT IS HAPPENING. I shall be adding links to various webpages, twitter handles and inserting picture - some that i have received as forwards on watsapp or publicly available and others clicked by me. In case of any copywright issues, please notify, I will take it down. While I understand we are living in an age on information overload, some day people may find this blog useful for peeking into the lives of ordinary people, as it was happening during the corona virus pandemic 2020.

Though I am publishing the stories with a few days lag, the content has been written mostly at the end of each day. So there will be predictions and apprehensions which may or may not remain true till the end of it all. May be there is no one remaining to correct anything anymore. But will most definitely remain is "us". Humans have outlived many a tragedies including an ice age, crusades, imperialism, world wars, epidemics and pandemics.

THIS TOO SHALL PASS. KEEP CALM AND STAY HOME.