“Stay at home” - the Ubuntu way - Day #5 (29 March 2020) - 21 day #Covid19 Lock down

Day #5 (29 March 2020)

“Stay at home” - the Ubuntu way

Atlast we are all back home, most of us atleast ! In the close circle of our father, mother, husband, wife, sons, daughters, grandchildren, our pets...and nobody else.

The maids have gone to their homes, the gardeners have been told not to come. The traditional home-delivery vegetable and fish vendors – the pushcart man, the woman with the basket of vegetables on her head, the fish-vendor man who comes in the carriage-auto ( we call them petti-auto), the fish-vendor woman, again with the basket of fish, all have gone home. The distinctive horns, bells, hoots, shouts, calls have all stopped. Missing are those mornings when they come and we haggle with them, poor people. Its not as if we don’t know that they live by it, but we all have our opinions made about each one of them. “That Mary!, everytime she gives us the worst fish she has, let her come tomorrow !”. It’s like that. We know they don’t always give us the best of their stuff, but there was always a tomorrow, for them, and for us.

The Covid19 killed it all, atleast for now, and we don’t know for how long. We have been following the statistics that speak of how many people, world over, has been affected with the disease. For the record, at this point it is 685,782 cases affected by the SARS-CoV2 virus, and a frightening 32,239 deaths. But how many have been affected by the lock down to contain the virus? Statistics say it is atleast 25% of global population, with the worst in India, China, US, France, UK, Italy, South Africa, Columbia, Spain and Argentina having been impacted with a full lock down or a partial lock down. Everybody has been asked to “Stay at Home”. Again, for how long, we don't know.

When my mother sent her maid away, she had this worried look. My mother assured her not to worry and that her salary will not be cut. She also gave her some money to tide over the crisis. After all both her sons and their family will not be paid, as they are contractual workers. Before leaving, the maid asked, “Amma, but who will make food for Nair sir ?”. Nair sir, was this neighbour, down the lane, who was old and alone, for whom she cooked everyday and cleaned the house. His son was in the US and the daughter in Canada, and he had lost his wife a few years ago. Five days back, the maid cooked food for a couple of days, packed it all into the fridge, and left. Because he lives in the city, my mother believes he would order food through one of those apps and survive. I do not know whether he regrets this condition or whether he misses a family. His only recreation, a walk up the lane and into the main road, some gossip with more of his peer, has all been stopped with the “Stay at Home” order. His children do call most days and ensure he is fine.

In the last few decades, since the 1980’s, there was this trend, atleast in the urban centres...when we pushed all our children into a globalised world or it took them all away from us. I remember my family also encouraging me to follow the peer, and go to some prospective land, at that time, the Middle-east or the USA. I remember that strange fear that caught me and how emphatically I resisted the prospect. I refused to leave home. They call it Xenophobia. I deny the accusation. Loneliness frightens me, living away from family is unthinkable. But wasn’t it natural ? Now, I see so many of my parent’s contemporaries live the lonely life. Some escape the solitary life with their attitude, many turn recluse.

The “Stay at Home” for close-knit loving families, with some assured salaries or good bank savings is re-connect time, with all the Covid19 induced cautions. For those without assured salaries, and are in some business or service sector that has to work everyday for the money to come in, there is some worry. But many are taking their time to be with the family and reconnect, sometimes with their disturbed relationships. After all, life in the past so many years has not been smooth, with never a moment off for love or care. As a friend who I spoke to said “Many of us haven’t even looked at each other as we used to, way back, when we started life together”. Its mending time for all of us.

But then there are families who are having a hellish time staying together, forced by the order of the lock down - “Stay at home”, is a scream on their heads. These are those whose lives took a dive down, and relationships have become irreparable. As an instance, here was a family whose friend spoke to me. He intervened as a psychiatrist. The father, mother and daughter don’t see eye to eye and the way they cope is to use the home, literally as a lodge, if you understand what I mean to say. Now, they are all at home, together, 24 hours and for 21 days. That is nightmare, but the friend of mine believes this is also an opportunity to start introspecting, relate with each other and mend. But then “they have three separate bedrooms, three mobile phones and their own worlds”. The three are waiting for the parole, literally, to get out of each other.

‘Ubuntu’ is now known to most of us. It has many meanings with the most often quoted being “I am, because you are”. Its an assertion of dependence as against independence, of cooperation as against the individual. We see a lot of Ubuntu in the tribal communities, and even in some farming communities and so less of it in modern developed ones. I believe modern developed societies are as human and need to relate to so many things around, and more so with their own kith and kin, in a deeply dependent manner. If Covid19 can make it happen, so be it !

“You are always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.”

- Richard Bach