With Corona tide ebbing all over, more challenging than the virus is restoring the public psyche to normal levels that was already not in proper shape.
In a WhatsApp message, one fine morning a wife tells her half-asleep husband, “Wake up, spot news: lockdown has ends today. Get ready for the job.” The drowsy husband slowly leaves the bed, and picks up the broom to clean the house. “Appears, you didn’t hear me correctly. I repeat, lockdown is over. Get dressed for your office”. Stunned, the husband quips, “Office, which office? Was I working, where – cannot recollect.” Ever thought, resuming the office or routine at home after a long gap due to vacation, sickness or other reason can be intriguingly painful.
Our behaviour, attitudes and actions reflect a mental frame we inherited, nourished and modified over decades since early years. Interwoven into our life values as this thought pattern is, it is hard to break the stereotype. Further, we believe it is the best possible presumably also because we are well used to it. Any deviation from the existing thought pattern, even when discovered to be flawed, redundant or harmful requires guts.
Based on certain unsegregated data, we are given to understand that over three lakh lives have been lost in India due to Covid thus far since its onset in March last year. There is conspicuous silence on damages and mortality by other diseases.
Admittedly, existence of the virus and the lingering morbidity & mortality it entails cannot be shrugged off. Yet, for a moment place yourself in pre-Corona era i.e. scenario before March 2020. India was witness to 25,270 daily deaths in the country, second to China at 28,036 as per World Economic Forum analysis for 2017. The estimated global annual death toll for tuberculosis of all kinds in 2019 (till which figures are available) stood at 14.18 lakh and 79,144 for India; for HIV-related diseases the annual death toll was 5 to 9 lakh global and around 69,000 for India in 2017. Annually, about a crore deaths take place due to tobacco-related diseases globally. Irrespective of Covid, these figures are not going to be significantly different for 2020 and 2021. A fair comparative assessment of quantitative change in morbidity & mortality in pre- and post-Covid era over a time frame shall bring to fore that the Covid death toll as reported is misleading and eclipses mortality from classical diseases. The actual Covid toll is not of the level we are told to make out, and includes all-cause mortality.
Corona or no-Corona, the world over as also in India, the state of mind has not been in good shape. Estimates of World Health Organisation and AIIMS Delhi put the quantum of mentally sick around 20 per cent. The lifestyle we have espoused – nuclear families, mad race for material values & ostentation, scant regard for native values that provides enormous strength in crisis situations, etc. allows little room for one-to-sharing of ethos and concerns, a primeval human need. With automation and prosperity we are becoming lonelier. In many families in our country a distinct room with gadgets is set aside for the 5-year kid to study, play and live. With this background it shall be folly to believe a morally strong generation rooted in cultural ethos. Depression stands all time high, affecting 322 million people worldwide. To ward off depression, antidepressants stand 3rd from top in list of prescription drugs in USA, the trend is increasing in India. Persons in this category are more vulnerable to drugs, addictions, mental disorders and suicide.
The Corana era witnessed exasperating the mental morbidity all around. Children already addicted to mobile phones had excuse to spend more time with it due to online classes; not knowing what to do during lockdowns, adults over duly harassed their unwilling wives, unusually large cases against husbands were registered in the year gone by; there was increase in violence, theft and dacoity though of different kind. In India, there were reports of over about a dozen school goers having committed suicide and many times more attempted. In Japan, already notorious for suicides, the cases went up for the first time in 11 years in 2020; more women took their lives 879 in October alone, which could be partly attributed to their lonesome living to which was added loss of employment – most of them were in hostelry and tourism that bore highest brunt.
Over caution in interacting with friends and relatives to the point of total avoidance to stay safe has tended to erode mutual understanding and trust, so vital for healthy living. People can die of mere imagination. Our perception to an untoward event is ever deadlier than the catastrophe itself, it is mind that has to be taught. Agreed, fear from Covid or any other source is natural yet fear is one thing and to be grabbed, quite another; it is former that overwhelmed people in Covid era.
Lack of a purpose in life lies at the root; in the absence of specific life mission, some of us just don’t know where to keep oneself engaged. With a lengthy to-do list at hand, they believe that with lifting of lockdown on a date declared by government, pandemic will disappear overnight and they shall freely move out to indulge in all activities to their heart’s content, safe and risk-free. The point is, what blueprint we have after we are completely Corona-free. Even if there is no major mission, loneliness can be significantly relieved by indulging in gardening, charity, giving distributing surplus food and money, and topmost remembering that we shall not live in this world forever.
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Published in edit page 6 of Orissa Post on 14 June 2021.
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