Crisis-ified!
   Date :23-Sep-2020

Crisis ified_1  
 
 
By Biraj Dixit :
 
 
 
 Just like that  
 
 
‘Crisis brings best out of people.’ Or so they say! Since none of the examinations I appeared for brought anything best out of me, I assumed it was just one of those sayings like ‘honesty is the best policy,’ that are uttered for creating an impression, but do not mean much. Of course, life, magnanimous as it is, does not often throw one into a real crisis. So, till the time one does not arrive at a wholesome crisis, one tends to name any seemingly troublesome situation as a ‘crisis’. nothing-to-wear-to-a-party, entertaining caustic relatives, no pocket money left, to deadlines, EMIs, no maids, angry mother-in-law, all were effortlessly termed ‘crisis’. Never in my life did I imagine that I will have to come face-to-face with no less than a pandemic to understand the real length, breadth and depth of a crisis.
 
Yet, here we are truly crisis-ified! In all modesty, I can hardly say if this crisis has brought anything good out of me. Not to mention the sheer care that I have been bestowing upon my compatriots in terms of not venturing out unnecessarily, wearing masks, sanitising anything and everything at anytime and everytime and taking each and every precaution that comes my way through media, social media, friends and relatives and their friends and their relatives... and then again their friends. I have, of course, greatly enhanced my culinary skills, creating an inevitable, delectable fusion of recipes endowed upon by my granny and bestowed upon by Google.
 
The aftermath of my enhanced cooking skills can well be imagined. A few more pounds here and there notwithstanding, I have learnt so many ways to justify being a gormandiser. In crisis situations people eat to protect themselves, to build immunity, to prevent infections, to avoid loneliness, to keep from feeling fearful, to fight depression, to get their way out of depression, to keep from making others depressed, to induce happiness, to feel joyful so on and so forth. So you see, while I have successfully kept corona at bay, obesity is fast catching up. I have also become more friendly with kids and all those kid-like people in my house. Nothing but a full-scale crisis could have convinced me to buy their arguments but as God’s will be, pandemic it is. So, for their sake, I am a more relaxed person now. Since, nobody is visiting us these days, I have sacrificed the zeal to make them wipe clean every inch of the house. I have also found various means to expand my horizons.
 
One is through OTT platform. Though I have my reservations using the word ‘binge’ since it means excessive indulgence. I have termed it as ‘committed-watching.’ You see, my elders, always taught me that one must finish what one started. I have introduced myself to so many newer concepts - actually newer ways of packaging. They call it DIY, these days. In our times, ‘Do It Yourself’ was a necessity not a lets-shoot-it privilege.
 
My daughter, an angel that she is, has taught me how to remain both present and absent at once in an online class. I must try this during one of our office conference calls! I really do not know if crisis can actually bring best out of you but it has indeed forced me to think hard. I have also discovered that once at it, thinking comes easy. But you must be careful, for, thoughts if left unchecked, behave like those noisy news channel anchors. They shout at you and create enough drama forcing you to pay attention and then when you are under their ominous grip, they drag you into their debates, dismantle your arguments, fill you with anger and frustration and leave you very tired. So one must learn to control one’s thoughts. Incidentally, these pandemic and lockdowns have given me enough time to meditate.
 
I highly recommend it, like I am sure, most of your well-wishers on social media have already done. Meditation has helped me to think straight. It is now that I have gathered the complete meaning of well-known American writer William Durant’s words. “The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds,” he said (You might wonder if the late American could actually foresee the American politics of present times!) But, this is true for all countries alike. Has not this little fact been amplified by our reaction to the present COVID crisis? Some are so hopeful that they are continuously forgetting to take basic precautions, some are so scared that they do not know where to stop being too cautious.
 
Some, so wishful of a vaccine being round the corner, throw all cautions to wind. The infection of the pandemic is contagious no doubt, but so seems stupidity of extremes. So, what best crisis has brought out of me? I really do not know. Perhaps, it is this little meeting with my own self every day. And the best that meditation has done to me is strengthened my belief in oft-repeated truth of life- ‘This, too, shall pass.”