CoviDiary

As May draws to a close, it brings an important realisation. I have been writing this diary everyday for the last 69 days! I can use this discipline for my writing projects that I have been procrastinating for ages. Let me begin tomorrow in right earnest. And write everyday at the same hour, for a fixed length of time, say 30 minutes. And I am not sure if I should continue this journal, now that lockdown is being relaxed in phases beginning tomorrow. May has been a transformative month and I should consolidate this gain.  Maharashtra is calling the relaxation - Mission Begin Again . I should also make a new beginning.  Last night NASA astronauts lifted off into space after nine long years. That it happened in the midst of a pandemic is a powerful statement. It marks a new chapter in space exploration. 

Saturday, 9th May, 3 weeks ago would be a significant day of this lockdown experience. And when I look back at the entry for that day, there is almost nothing there to suggest this. Obviously because I wouldn't have known it then. It was the day when I opened the window in my room completely and let it stay open until near dusk. A lot changed because of that. I reconnected with nature. My fear vanished and was replaced with hope. It was the week I had signed up for the mindfulness course. Opening up that window was opening up my mind to new suggestions, new experiences.  Had a long chat with Ketan. He called me to ask for some advice regarding his son's college project. I learned that everyone is happy working from home. They have regular meetings, even LE meeting, using TEAMS.They even had quality audits.  Why shouldn't it continue like this forever? The office has a large contractual staff for housekeeping and pantry. Only they will lose their jobs and livelihood. B

Lockdown 4 ends on Sunday. Will we have version 5? No clarity yet. Maharashtra wants local trains to be resumed for ferrying healthcare workers. But beyond that?  I had a moment of epiphany today. 

Terrible things are happening across the world. But my mind is happily occupying itself with tiny pleasures. The bubbles when I cooked the porridge. The increased bird activity compared to yesterday, probably because of a lower temperature. The crow scaring away Mr Robin from his favourite perch. The white underwing of the Mynah. A family using the roof of their car to dry papad and fryums.  The Lancet study on Hydroxychloroquine has stirred the hornet's nest.  We were unable to confirm a benefit of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine, when used alone or with a macrolide, on in-hospital outcomes for COVID-19. Each of these drug regimens was associated with decreased in-hospital survival and an increased frequency of ventricular arrhythmias when used for treatment of COVID-19. WHO has suspended Hydroxychloroquine treatment in Solidarity Trials . But ICMR says the benefits outweigh risks. France has barred the drug, but Oxford University wants to continue the trial. The

KEM Hospital  To exist is to experience the burden of the world. Mindfulness can assist us better engage with media reporting of tragic events by helping us to engage with the content in a more mindful way by empathising but not over-identifying with the experience of others, or getting caught in our own reactions to it.  We should notice any feelings and be aware of them in an open but compassionate way, but not identify with or be consumed by them.  We can remain present and grounded in ourselves and also focus on compassion - that is, wishing that the person in the tragic situation be happy and free from suffering and possibly doing something to help them. This extra step of acting or at least wishing to reduce suffering is important as it marks the transition from empathy to compassion and is associated with better mental health outcomes. Doing so actually reduces activation in areas of the brain associated with stress (e.g. the amygdala) and activates different parts o

I am running a poll on twitter today (why didn't I think of it before!). The poll asks if people will opt for free voluntary testing for coronavirus. Among 44 respondents, only 64% said YES. So much for repeatedly saying - we want more testing! And among those who said NO, more than half attributed the reason to their good health. So I am okay, test others! What happened to all the widespread knowledge of asymptomatic infection?  In yesterday's AA meeting, I had raised concerns on mental health of students. S sent me this e-book on mental health. I believe the college has not made it available to the students. I am hesitating to send it to my students. It is a sensitve issue and should not backfire.  The lockdown is enabling me to enrich myself with new experiences and skills. Last night I watched Globe theatre's Macbeth . Today I cooked Cluster Beans (Gowar) for the first time ever. Sudoku skills are getting better each day.   COVID19 in Mongolia  - The best

My first Zoom meeting. I realised the terrible lighting in my room. Nobody probably noticed my beard because of the intense backlighting.  America is redesigning its public restrooms. On the day when some flights resumed, people have started to ask this question - what did we achieve by lockdown?

Got this response when I wondered on twitter if anyone has started collecting facemasks.  Fashion labels getting creative with facemasks . Today's front page of NYT

This period of enforced time in the home has encouraged a more mindful way of existing, although many won't have thought of it like that! Having the time to look around the home, to de-clutter and not to have to rush at things; to enjoy the garden and the birdsong, noticing the blossoming of flowers has led to feeling far more relaxed and calm which, in turn, enhances a sense of well-being, and well-wishing towards others. This comment by a fellow learner in the mindfulness course very succintly describes my  own experience of the lockdown.   Sudoku has been another thing I am upgrading my skills on. Learnt about the "skyscraper" technique today and was able to solve couple of "expert level" puzzles in a decent time. 

The bird that has been teasing and tormenting me for the past few days has been framed finally. Lockdown has revealed that there are birds other than crow and sparrow in the compound of our building. Containment in our building has been lifted today. 14 days have passed so quicky!  Cases are increasing everyday in the city. Hospitals are under intense pressure. I can't imagine that the lockdown will be relaxed from 1st June.  How should we prepare for the next pandemic?

This Ivy Gourd subji was today's stress-buster. Along with deep dives into Sudoku armed with some theory of triples.  A CoronaWarrior visited us today, wearing a face shield. Asked if anybody has cough and quickly left without even making eye contact.  Best thing I read today - By end of the year people may be able to test themselves for coronavirus.   Looking forward to that day.  Ten reasons why immunity passports are a bad idea .  Restricting movement on the basis of biology threatens freedom, fairness and public health. The coronavirus is believed to be attacking some children in a mysterious and deadly way. This condition has an equally complex name - Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome (PIMS).   Cases are emerging mostly from the US. 

Very pleased with today's effort. I can look back at the lockdown days with great satisfaction because of pictures like these.  Weeks are passing quickly during the lockdown. Days are flying in the week. And hours are rushing by during the day. Yet, I feel I am slowing down. I am not rushed, I find time to include walking, meditation and napping into my daily routine.  Gratitude journal is not easy to maintain. Today I struggled to find entries Today I used zoom for the very first time. For many it has become synonymous with working and learning from home. I used it to attend an e-adda with Naushad Forbes organised by Indian Express. At least he didn't pretend to know everything. Migrant labour dominated the adda.  Will the labour show any eagerness to return? And why should they? We should use this opportunity to decongest our overgrown cities and make it more liveable. Businesses will face a skill shortage. New recruits will seek more wages and will have t

Started a gratitude journal today. It was a recommendation in the mindfulness course for rewiring the brain. And the very first entry was to thank my cablewala for sending the technicians promptly to address the wifi outage. Life without Internet would be unthinkable in these times.  No more polishing of the cricket ball by spit. The rule will take shine off cricket.  

Lockdown4 started.  Number of cases breached 100,000 Sensex plunged 1000+ Moderna announced some good news on the vaccine .  The results are encouraging, but we can’t draw conclusions from a phase 1 trial, with data from only eight participants so far.  Covid will change habits. Habits of individuals, communities, countries and the entire world. Habits will decide what and how much they will buy. Since chemicals are tied up with almost every manufactured goods, it will change the chemical industry. I want to expand on this for my column this week.  R had a virtual exit. He will join virtually next Monday. 

Water dripping from the AC in the apartment above. Enhancing my shooting skills and providing a mindful experience of gazing out of the window.  Lockdown 3.0 ends today. Version 4.0 beginning tomorrow will have relaxations depending on colour code - Red, Orange or Green. But looks like Mumbai will stay in RED till end of the month.   LOCKDOWN4.0 Guidelines

Bundesliga resumed today. In an empty stadium. Dortmund vs Schalke. Has Covid19 killed globalisation? Plandemic  

Vegetables are being sold by new people at new places on the pavement. In small lots without a scale, to avoid police harassment. Bought bittergourd from 2 ladies at a cheaper price of Rs 15. Long conversation with G. He voiced what I have been fearing for many days. If you have the AS app on your phone while buying vegetables from an infected vendor, the authorities may be alerted to send you into quarantine. The remedy should have been to keep the vendor away from streets. Don't take your phone while going out on short errands, says G. Swedish Strategy - They may attain herd immunity next month. Only saving lives will save livelihoods. The risk of COVID19 is widely misread. Superb op-ed by Kaushik Basu. The Politics of Selling Nudes during a Pandemic Indonesia gripped by sunbathing mania as protection against the Coronavirus COVID19 targets the elderly

Finally I have a bottle of hand sanitiser, 51 days after lockdown. Paid 50 bucks for it. But they didn't have my regular medicine. Visited 5 pharmacies, before finding it at the 6th.  The flimsy plastic bag is back. Almost every vegetable vendor is using it. Vegetables, specially tomatoes, are being sold many in prepacked lots of 1/2 kg and 1 kg.  Learned about Advanced Directive today.  An  advance healthcare directive , also known as  living will ,  personal directive ,  advance directive ,  medical directive  or  advance decision , is a legal document in which a person specifies what actions should be taken for their health if they are no longer able to make decisions for themselves because of illness or incapacity.

Captioned it isolation. Really proud of this effort.  After 50 days of lockdown, the narrative has shifted from the virus to the stimulus.  New habits have taken roots. 20-minute timed afternoon naps. Satyajit Ray films late night. Mindfulness meditation twice a day. 4-5 kms walk inside home. And now lately, Sudoku with high difficulty levels. 3rd consecutive day of abstaining from twitter. 

Happenstance. Because I noticed the fleeting shadow just in time. In these times of Social Distancing, we are more connected than ever. If anyone in my wing falls sick, I will suffer too. I wish them to be safe and healthy. Wishing happiness and peace to someone whom you care was the theme of today's meditation . I kept an occasional vigil on the opposite wing to see if there is any traffic. Couple of guys delivered vegetables. A cop came in bike in the afternoon to check.   The Comeback of the Car A key enzyme makes men more vulnerable to Covid19 Will the Corona Beer rebrand itself? Will the Coronavirus reshape urban architecture? How will the pandemic play out? Passenger train services resumed today in a limited way after being shut for 50 days. Modi made a long speech, in which he kept rambling about Atma Nirbhar Bharat. 

The virus is now face to face. Someone in the opposite wing of our building is apparently infected. The wing has been declared as a containment zone. Learned this from the notice board when I went out to buy milk in the morning. The residents cannot come out and others have to help them, said the notice, also adding that it is impractical to lock the society gate. Curiously, week 2 of the mindfulness course began with lessons on empathy and compassion. I have decided to stay away from twitter for this entire week. Want to test my will power. Being mindful abut interactions on social media has been a key takeaway last week.  Correlation between Covid and Vitamin-D

Solitary leaf reflecting the glorious Sun . My photography practice this morning. Got this with 1/1000. Posted it on Instagram as "HOPE" After bombarding us with "Flatten the Curve", the refrain has changed. Authorities are veering around to the inescapable fact that we have to live with the virus for a long long time, if not forever. The messaging of fear has been unfortunate. People have to be brainwashed again. Will the migrant labourers who have fled the cities return? Maybe it is a great opportunity to de-congest our cities and make them more livable again. More livelihood opportunities in the rural country. Can we rebuid the economy differently? Do we have the imagination for that? Are we willing to take the risk?  Why the Coronavirus is so confusing

What a shot in Indian Express! Special trains like this are being run across the country to transport migrant labourers to their villages. 

Amidst the mounting COVID19 fatalities, comes the news of a goods train running over 16 migrant labourers near Aurangabad. They were walking along the track and fell asleep due to exhaustion. Who will be held accountable? CM is hinting that lockdown will be extended till end May. And rumours are rife that army will be called out in Mumbai. We are yet to see the darkest face of the virus. I rolled back the newspapers of the week to read about Llama Blood  and Nicotine . Meanwhile in the US, the cruise industry wants to resume business in August. I was thinking this is one business that should be allowed to die first. 

What is going on? Covid19 is beginning only now in India. After 6 weeks of lockdown. Mumbai is expected to have 75,000 cases by end May. All India cases are 50,000 now and Mumbai has 10,000. At least government knows what is going to come in the weeks ahead. But this messaging has not gone to the masses. The ignorant are expecting the virus to vanish on the day the lockdown is lifted. The statistics in the weeks ahead will be mind numbing. But it is not the same everywhere. Kerala is reporting zero new cases for the 2nd consecutive day. Cities in Gujarat have been totally locked down with paramilitary patrols on the streets. Only milk and medicine will be allowed. This scenario can be played out in any city anytime. And amidst all this, Air India is going to bring tens of thousands of stranded Indians from across the world. Mindfulness course and Satyajit Ray films should see me through May. 

One oft repeated word these days is stimulus. It comes next only to coronavirus. News channels keep repeating it ad nauseam. Do the anchors even think about what they want to stimulate? Tho old economy? Shouldn’t we allow it to wither away? If we hope to have a transformative post-Covid world, we don’t want to carry the baggage of the old economy. We want a lean and clean economy. Decentralised as much as possible. Responsive and responsible, yet remote. It will cause much pain in the near short term. Some businesses have to die. We need stimulus for ideas, for innovation, for imagination. Not for reviving the dead. The pandemic could be a cure in disguise for climate change. We could leapfrog 5 years into this decade wearing a green mask. 

Suddenly I am enveloped in a tight cocoon of pessimism. Restrictions are being lifted even as cases are rising. The peak is nowhere near sight. Why wouldn't we suffer the same plight as USA, UK. Spain and Italy? Nobody is really trying to analyse if and why the virus is behaving differently in India. The daily dose of statistics on the news channels is getting irksome and meaningless, pitting one state against another. It is becoming increasingly clear that "we are many countries" in this pandemic and the same rules cannot be applied nationwide. Social distancing collapsed the moment liquor shops were opened. Mumbai has closed them back, whereas the Delhi government imposed a 70% corona tax on the spirits. It is impossible to implement social distancing in Mumbai. Can the city be normal ever without the local train? This is going to be a seriously long drawn affair. Maybe 24 months. I would have aged by then. 

For the first time, a bird other than crow perched itself on a branch some 10 metres outside the window. And my telephoto lens was grateful.  And as liquor shops opened across the country, people stood in lonq queues.  How Remdesivir tricks the virus? US FDA authorises emergency use of Remdesivir.  

Distance Teaching The pandemic has disrupted our lives rudely. As people scramble and get back on their feet, rules are getting rewritten. There is complete unanimity that the post-Covid world will be different and the life that we were familiar with will not return anytime soon. When Heraclitus said change is the only constant in life, he referred philosophically to an almost imperceptible change. But the pandemic has brought about change in one fell swoop. No doubt this causes much pain, but it provides an excellent opportunity to leapfrog into the future. Many businesses have quickly adapted themselves to the “Work From Home” culture. And managements are quick to spot the benefits to their bottom line. They are unlikely to revert to the old practice once the pandemic dust settles down. The cleaner air will be a welcome bonus to the society. Teaching and learning also will change, like other human activities. The classroom is dead. What would be the shape of the futu

Escaping from reality after securing coffee.  Immersed myself in films of Satyajit Ray

May has begun with a low key announcement of extending the lockdown by further 2 weeks till 17th. This will be a mirage in the absence of a clear criteria for lifting lockdown. In USA, CDC has given a guideline that  once a region experiences a 14-day decline in the hospitalisation rate they may begin a phased re-opening. FDA is likely to fast track its approval of Remdesivir. Much hope riding now on this drug from Gilead. The trials so far have demonstrated 30% shortening of the recovery time for COVID19 patients.  Coronavirus treatments : Remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine and vaccines for COVID-19 Another primer on vaccine. We have never done this before. A lot could go wrong.