The Statesman, 14 December 2020
The Corona virus pandemic has brought in its wake sickness, unemployment, stress and uncertainty. Despite being overwhelmed on multiple fronts, people are struggling valiantly to make the best of a bad situation. The younger generation in particular has shown remarkable forbearance. As my daughter’s friend ruefully put it – “I went out to college and excitedly began the process of carving out an independent niche for myself in the world, yet here I am …. back to square one, cocooned in the family nest and confined to the house”.
We all think about a better future for our children but how do we go about ensuring that under such trying circumstances? After some ‘triaging’ what springs foremost to my mind as being of vital importance is: understanding and building up immunity to higher levels, practising kindness and compassion more abundantly, realizing how mother Earth is suffering along with us, and helping her heal simultaneously.
Nowhere has the role of immunity been highlighted more dramatically than during this pandemic. At one end of the spectrum, it supresses the infection so efficiently and stealthily, that patients are alerted to its presence only if perchance they test positive for Covid. At the other end, our immune system itself can harm our body by over recruitment of immune mediators - the much talked about ‘cytokine storm’. Studies of diseases that cause autoimmune microangiopathies (involvement of small blood vessels) or Leprosy, where the type of immune response varies depending on the bacillary load are among those that can help provide valuable insights into treatments.
In his book “Quantum Healing’ Deepak Chopra speaks eloquently of the elusive ‘switch’ which connects an abstract thought to a concrete neurotransmitter molecule and thus translates an idea into tangible action. Somewhere behind this mystery lies the fascinating potential ability to be able to consciously unleash complex immunological cascades in perfect balance. However, till we make this magical evolutionary leap, we can rely on a balanced diet as well as freely and abundantly available resources: sunshine - known to play a mitigating role in seasonal affective disorder related depression; massages, laughter, playing with pets – all of which release endorphins (natural mood elevators and pain relievers) in the body, and meditation with its scientifically proven ability to induce structural changes like an increase in grey matter as well as its beneficial effects on calming the mind, boosting immunity, steadying our heart rates and lowering blood pressure.
Kindness and thoughtfulness, often underrated, have never been of greater importance. Nowadays we often find ourselves dependent on total strangers. Elderly people living far away from their families are being looked after by neighbours with whom they may not even have interacted earlier. In hospitals, we find young and old patients, unable to fully fend for themselves, who are cut off from the loving care of their families while admitted. However, many of the doctors and nurses who tend to them often go beyond the call of medical duty and act as a surrogate family to them. With the work and study from home format and social gatherings being best avoided, a far larger slice of the population is now experiencing loneliness, depression and isolation. Unlike before, we can’t always rely on our usual pillars of strength to be there for us – for all over, people are fighting their own battles and their resources and reserves are stretched. Yet there is a virtual bonding amongst strangers. People share their experiences and advice generously on social media. Sometimes a heart- warming post can provide a surge of hope to someone sitting halfway across the world.
In the initial days, kind heartedness towards those who had contracted Covid was not much in evidence. In some places, Covid positive individuals were shunned by neighbours. Petty-minded landlords even turned away doctor and nurse tenants who worked at hospitals, to safeguard themselves. However, an overall social awakening towards being kind and helpful was discernible with thousands of ordinary citizens reaching out to support the migrant labourers in India for example. Some elderly patients in Europe made the ultimate sacrifice for their fellow humans when there was a shortage of ventilators - giving up their chance in favour of a younger patient.
Another entity that desperately needs a show of kindness is planet Earth, who is reeling from a pandemic of human acts that have relentlessly depleted her reserves. Earth’s ‘lungs’- her forest cover, have been greatly weakened by profit-driven and uncaring human activity. Even as we humans hope and pray that we contract the asymptomatic version of Covid if at all, yet our lifestyles of consumerism leave mother Earth violently symptomatic. These manifest as natural disasters– devastating floods, strong cyclones, raging fires and the like. Perhaps now is the ideal moment for each one of us to be a frontline worker in healing the Earth.
It is deeply ironical that the planet once provided us pure air abundantly, yet we polluted it to the extent that we have to sip clean oxygen out of cylinders. To restore the green status quo there are several initiatives that can be taken both at an individual level - such as growing plants and vegetables in our own backyards to the government level - establishing far more universities for plant and wildlife studies, strict environmental laws that protect forest lands from road construction and mining and not allowing shops/kiosks in gardens, to prevent littering in and concretization of green spaces.
We can also reduce the ‘toxins’- plastic and concrete – from the surface of the Earth by a determined plan to use alternatives. Currently, one needs to reduce the additional load of plastic waste generated by the life- saving personal protective equipment (PPE). A good viable alternative is PPE made from recyclable material for example, maize outer leaf husk (fairly waterproof) or otherwise soap paper. The small, rectangular soap paper strips that are popularly used during travels can be manufactured in longer shapes – such as PPE overalls. Soap paper is naturally virucidal (soap molecules have a lipophilic component that binds to the lipid cell membrane of viruses, inactivating them) and very affordable. We can consider decreasing the use of alcohol-based sanitizers. Here too soap (in liquid form) could be a potential alternative. Also, it may be worth doing a study to see if blowing soap bubbles into the air (a useful talent that most kids excel at) helps to inactivate airborne viruses by adhering aerially to them. Moreover, when the bubbles burst, they would provide a fine protective film on the surface they rupture against. We can similarly make a deliberate attempt to reduce the use of concrete by removing it from where it is not really needed - for example from pavements. Pavements anywhere can be made simply of pressed mud with a brick edging only. This will help in replenishing the groundwater better, prevent flooding of roadsides in the rains and will allow trees to be planted on pavements which will discourage two wheelers from appropriating them.
To my mind, this pandemic brings a single message for mankind -that it is imperative to follow a sustainable lifestyle. If our collective actions now begin to spring from consciously caring about our own well-being , thoughtfulness towards our fellow humans and genuine love for Mother Earth and its species, this terrible suffering would be partly comprehensible.
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