Monday, 19 October 2020

COVID’s Witching Hour

With the COVID pandemic having convulsed the globe this year, many like myself are still coming to terms with the new norms of life that have been imposed upon us. For an outdoorsy person such as myself, the quarantine period has taken a big toll. I still tend to take the optimistic view that we should soon conquer this debilitating virus, however more importantly the life lessons it has given us are worth pondering and introspecting.


I try to engineer the slightest excuse

To wander outside

 

Exploring well-rehearsed excuses

And errands that I have refused to perform

In all these years

Take grocery shopping for example

 

Whenever I step outside,

A flex board outside

With letters emblazoned in alarming red

Blare – “Stay Home. Be Responsible.”

 

My conscionable self-retreats home-ward

But my heart isn’t appeased

 

My fidgety fingers and shuffling feet

Need action

 

The house, feels like a prison cell

The same four walls that guarded and nurtured me for 3 decades

Arrest my presence

 

I switch on the TV in sheer boredom

There is only one thing being talked

 

News channels, sports channels, vernacular programmes,

Hackneyed soap operas all are centered

On one grotesque theme -

The theme of the hour

The idiot box is gravid

With COVID-19

 

Death, doom and destruction

Foretokenings and instructions

Are all that are being purveyed

 

I switch off the TV and head back into the bed room

Scrolling down, the over-wrought mobile

For new sources of divertissement

 

The Instagram memes are only a temporary pain-killer

Facebook has been employed ad-nauseum

I need one ultimate cure, a panacea

To wash away the ennui

 

Till the time we can step our toes

Into the waters of normalcy

 

Till the time we can proclaim

The sky is ours again

 

Till the time

Life becomes life again

 

Till then we will do what we can

Contribute in the slightest possible way

To tear away the pandemic nets

That have been cast upon us

 

Corona is basking in it’s witching hour

But this too shall pass

We will do what is in our power

To end this impasse

 

 

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