Lockdown Dairies - Random Thoughts

Good Evening Friends, it is 15 minutes past 10 now as I sit here to pen down (or type in ) some random thoughts. We all are spending our days in the hope of the situation recovering soon as we keep ourselves with busy our household chores. Some of the residents are lucky to have live-in house-help and the situation for them is not so bad. Most of us who are used to outside daytime help are somewhat in a tight situation, as it has been quite sometime that we have done all household chores ourselves.

But as we are all very adaptable in nature we have managed to streamline our daily chores of cooking, cleaning, washing etc.. and also, as many of us are working from home, the workload is there too, alongside the household chores. Most of us, I believe, are lucky to get help from our family members. But then there are households who believe that all house-chores are the job of the woman of the house and they are the nawabs ordering their womenfolk around!! I pray to God that these people come out of such medieval mentality and start treating their womenfolk with some respect! On one hand they worship Ma Durga and Kanyakumari and on the other hand they treat their women like dirt !! That too in educated well to do families !!

And amidst this we get daily local news of people breaking the epidemic law and jumping quarantine and undertake activities which are harmful to our community health! Today the police had stopped the vegetable vendors from going to the Okhla Mandi as they had orders to stop people from going to the mandi. This is because they had news that  many of the mandi vendors are from the affected Nizamuddin area. The police was asked to stop the vegetable vendors from other areas from going out there for their own health and also the community health. But some of these vendors gave the police a slip (and they said it proudly) and brought vegetables and supplies from the Mandi!!

Now this is a scary situation! The vegetables and fruits have much chance of being contaminated and we do not know who all have jumped quarantine and who all have handled the supplies! This community spreading is the biggest scare of the situation. All authorities are trying their best to help people from getting affected and sick and here the people are breaking rules and giving the police a slip!

Well then, we all have to be more careful about sanitising our supplies very well before using them. Dry ration should be left outside in the sun for atleast 2 hours before bringing them in. Fruits and vegetables should also be left outside / in balcony for 2 hours and then brought in and washed well before storing and using. People going out to get ration should compulsorily take a bath after coming from the market and wash the outside clothes. Only by maintaining absolute hygiene, we can keep all diseases from entering our houses!

Many people are still breaking law by taking morning and evening walks despite authorities repeatedly requesting them not to do so! God help us all!! Some super-heroes have taken it upon their shoulders to monitor the situation! They do not understand that they can help the community better by staying home and not rampaging outside! Over-zealous people are also trying to gain punya by by-passing authorities and going about donating supplies! This has given rise to a situation where some people have managed to hoard donations of about 50 kg atta and 30kg rice and other supplies in individual households! When the authorities/ local RWAs are taking care of the situation by donating ration etc, why are the over-enthusiastic people out there on the roads breaking the epidemic law!!

At this time of pandemic the best service one can give to the nation is by staying home! Hope that people understand this and we come out of this dreary situation soon. Jai Hind!!

By Dr Anindita Roy (9818541252), CR Park, New Delhi