Lockdown - the Beginning

As you all know a deadly pandemic broke in 2020 - COVID-19 and the only way to mitigate it was social distancing. Cities and countries started announcing lockdown to discourage people from meeting and mingling with the hope to mitigate the effect of this virus. India was also not left behind.

In my previous blog, I spoke about the week leading to the lockdown. Now let us get into the details. Once again a disclaimer - my intention is not to undermine the effect of corona nor belittle the efforts taken to keep it under control, it is just to give some comic relief in these difficult times.

Well, PM has asked us to stay at home on Sunday (March 22nd) and then the following Wednesday (25th March) imposed a nation-wide lockdown for 21 days. By then we, in Hyderabad, were already working from home for a week now and in lockdown since 22nd March. So this was just an extension to the situation.

The initial euphoria behind working from home died. For some, it was vacation time, but for most of us, it was still working time. We realized that we had deadlines to be met, calls to attend, status to be given and amidst all this a house to be taken care of. With police blocks in place, the movement of domestic help and daily vegetable/fruit vendors were restricted. This meant additional household work to be taken care of within the limited means, and everyone in the house had to pitch in some way or the other. Wives realized that their husbands were not that useless after all, parents realized that kids can be responsible and kids discovered homemade food was edible.

Of the innumerable measures state took to contain the virus, one was to seal off the state borders but this meant that along with the virus, provisions and groceries were also stuck at the border. Being the end of the month, many households had the same issue with provisions. And for people like me who are totally dependent on supermarkets and Big Basket, the outlook was bleak. Supermarkets stock was dwindling. Online delivery portals failed due to the lack of delivery executives. The crowd was increasing at supermarkets and hoarding started Seeing the crowd I started getting paranoid, what happened to the social distancing call by our beloved PM? Luckily the local Kirana shops came to rescue, basic needs were taken care of but with no supplies coming in, they were also not able to restock. Slowly the law enforcement started coming up with waivers - allowing entry for trucks carrying provisions and groceries, allowing passes for the delivery vans, prioritizing the vehicular movement, allowing for relaxation hours - a classic case of act first think later!!!!!

The law enforcers had a tough time enforcing social distancing. People refused to take things seriously, either out of innocence or out of arrogance. Everywhere they had to be monitored. Markets, shops, supermarkets were given strict orders not to allow people in without masks, there were markers in place to ensure people maintained distance. All this queue system, lack of crowd and lack of noise (no traffic no noise) made my Dad comment that it almost feels like we are in a foreign country, not India.

Uneducated people had no clue as to what a virus was and what a pandemic is. Some educated morons very ardently believed themselves to be immune to the virus attack and that the government knows nothing. Most blamed the police for impeding their freedom. Both the class of people looked for ways to break the law. Poor cops, they were beaten up if they allowed people to go and also if they didn't. To overcome this mess, they did what they do the best - erect barricades. Flyovers were closed, all major roads were blocked, areas were cordoned off from each other. While it was the need of the hour it had its own repercussions as we would witness later (I always wanted to say that in my blog!!!).

 As I  mentioned, it was the senior citizens living by themselves who were the worst affected. Even though the maids were willing to come and help out the elderly, the law enforcers were very harsh on them. Without the delivery guys, they had no means to acquire fresh provisions. My parents and my in-laws were stuck. Given the caution around senior citizens, we weren't too comfortable moving them. My husband and I decided to take care of them separately, he moved in with his parents and my parents moved in with me. This move ensured that we would not be on the list of rising domestic dispute cases!!!

Continued here....