Bigyani Das
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, social distancing, face mask, and online events have become the new normal for our life now. If anybody is spotted in someplace without a mask, in a grocery store, post office or gas station, they are being shamed, sometimes approached by security guards and removed from the facility. All the events are now being held online starting from conferences, workshops, tutorials to dance classes, temple rituals, and fundraising programs. People are becoming more creative in celebrating graduations, birthdays, and wedding anniversaries.
We live in a rural type of neighborhood which is 20-30 minutes away from major cities. We have two small post offices in both north and south sides of our home within 5 minutes of driving. On April 20, I decided to get out from house and go to the post office to mail donation check for the Hindu Temple. I could have done it online, however, we had recent episode of online credit card hacking and I did not want to take the risk. I packed disinfecting Clorox wipes, took my driving license and drove north to the post office. There were very less people. That was my first attempt to get out from our neighborhood in more than a month, from March 12th.
I saw the signs of upcoming summer everywhere. The cherry flowers were slowly converting to leaves. The post office was closed that time. Apart from the nearby restaurant and pharmacy, other facilities were closed. There were some people in both the gas stations that were nearby in both sides of Ten Oaks Road. I was scared to encounter another person. I looked around and finding nobody in front of the post office, slowly got out of the car, dropped the envelope containing the check in the mailbox and immediately returned to the car when I saw another lady getting out of her car to do the same thing.
I wanted to avoid that lady and stay far from her and was very scared as if I saw a ghost. The other lady had the mask and I did not. Soon two other people started walking by the mailbox to go towards the restaurant. I cleaned my hands with the Clorox wipe since I touched the surface of the mailbox and drove back to my house. After reaching home, I again washed my hands, washed my legs and put my cloth in the laundry.
There was reason to be scared. The number of infections was increasing day by day in our state. By today, the number has increased to 46,313. Last month by this day it was around 15, 000. The average increase by day is about 1000 new cases. For a while I stopped checking the number as the average increase of 1000/day was established. The death rate was also increasing. There were horrible stories of people and their struggle with the virus in the news. There was no news of any effective drug for treatment, neither was any confirmed news of vaccine.
Only options for people like us, stay home, stay safe, stay connected, stay strong. Those are the advices for common people like us to help the community, help the health care system, help the Government and not create more headaches for them through our mistakes, carelessness and disregard of the warnings. And, that is what we were doing. Yes, it was not fun to live a life like that, yet we are lucky to even avail that life whereas many others are struggling a lot.
We hosted three bhajan group meetings through WebEx. Some of our congregation members were against Zoom for security issues. There were technical glitches and slowly we learnt how to take care of those glitches. We had our toastmasters club meeting once through WebEx and another time through Zoom. We loved Zoom since it had more controlling options, however, our official meetings were always held either by Google Hangout, WebEx or GoToMeeting. The townhalls were held by YouTube.
All these mediums were perfect if one person speaks at a time. However, these were not perfect for collaborative activities such as bhajan singing where one person sings and another person plays the harmonium and the third person plays percussion instrument. We also observed Sabitri Brata through WebEx. The pundit (a friend), performed puja at his home and directed us to perform rituals at our own homes. It was fine except that when we wanted to do collaborative reading of the “Sabitri Brata” story, it became noisy. Yet, we were grateful that we could observe “Sabitri Brata” together.
Second Sunday of May was Mother’s Day (May 10, 2020). Our two younger daughters that were living with us because of coronavirus shutdowns planned many new dishes to give me a treat. Usually, every year after they passed high school and went to college, it was by the phone call that they wished Mother’s Day. However, this year they were with us, one reason to appreciate corona. They cooked new dishes. My eldest daughter who was living in Alexandria, Virginia, within an hour drive gave us a surprise visit with her husband and the dog.
However, she and her husband both had covered themselves with masks and they did not touch us, neither did we give them hugs. It was very awkward feeling. They were talking with mask on and it was feeling so funny. How do we spend time together in such a situation? My daughter asked me “what would you like to do still maintaining social distance?” It was sunny and hot outside. So, I decided to do some exercise through dance. She taught me dance steps and that is how we spent 3-4 hours together.
My daughters also celebrated my birthday recreating a restaurant environment. My younger daughter referred to the internet and prepared rasagola and rasmalai, my favorite sweet dishes. It was her first attempt and they came out perfect. She also made cabbage in oriental style. My youngest daughter made eggless banana bread and potato wedges. They lit candles, put fancy dining sheets, used fancy plates and bowls to serve food in restaurant style.
Our toastmasters’ club members were missing meetings and they contacted. My husband and me are both members of the same advanced club. We tried to have a meeting in April through WebEx. Then one colleague suggested to use Zoom next time. For our May month meeting we met through Zoom and it was a very productive meeting.
When coronavirus appeared in USA, and states mandated shutdown, Arya International decided to offer dance classes differently. Initially the instructor created video of dance steps and emailed us. We were supposed to practice and share the video with the instructor. As shutdown continued, Arya offered dance lessons through Zoom. Nobody thought this would become a new normal. Some of my dance mates ended their commitment as they were not getting enough from online lessons.
However, most of us kept our commitment with Arya mainly for two reasons, our continued exercise and enjoyment as well as supporting our instructor. Now Arya offers a lot of bonus classes everyday through zoom, Bollywood Zumba fitness classes as well as choreography classes of many popular Bollywood songs. Those are somethings I enjoy during this shutdown and whenever time permits, I attend bonus classes to stay fit. Through this I now know many instructors outside of Maryland and many dance mates that join same classes with me.
Many of the organizations we are associated with now conduct their events through video conferencing medium Zoom. Temples offer their services through Zoom, Facebook, Instagram etc. Some organizations have their fundraising events through Zoom and Facebook. The Odisha Society of the Americas (OSA) organized literature events and fundraising events through Zoom. Even though I cannot keep up with all these events since at times they become too much and sometimes they were held in parallel, I appreciate the fact that people have found a way to live through corona.
As most of the states in USA now prepare to reopen, we do not know what will happen in upcoming weeks after reopening. We still do not have the vaccine, we still do not have the drugs for effective treatment, and we still do not have any solution for the anticipated problems that might come from human behavior after reopening. However, shutdown is affecting the economy and many people, many businesses, many nonprofit organizations are suffering. I do not know what is right, what is wrong. I still believe that the end result will be for the betterment of the mankind.
Throughout history, human race is challenged for its survival. Sometimes natural disasters and sometimes microorganisms have created challenges for this race. Storms, hurricanes, earthquake, drought, flooding, we learn to survive through these natural disasters. We discovered the vaccine for smallpox, cholera, polio, HIV and many cancers. Humans have taken the challenges and explored survival skills.
Yes, the natural forces are sometimes unknown and unpredictable. Yet, our thought processes and intelligence do evolve in the speed that is higher than the speed of these challenges. We will survive this pandemic, learn to live through this, and come out as winners very soon. The challenges will go on. Human ingenuity will go on and life will go on.
(Dr. Das lives in Dayton, Maryland, USA)