Idiot in a lockdown

Idiot.

This one word tells you how most of us were made to feel during the lockdown. If you think I’m being unreasonable, just look at the sheer number of people who were updating and guiding you with facts that you never knew existed.

Before you think I am trying to be cynical only towards my friends on the social media, let me hurry and add that the maximum score goes to the government. They have an unending convoy of civil servants who remain amiable and sociable so long as they aren’t questioned and enjoy firing memos, harangues, temperamental expressions pretending to be statistically sound observations, short and long notes, short and long amendments to these short and long notes, short and long corrigendum to amendments that were both short and long, and whatever else can be imagined as attachments to urgent and not-so-urgent communication to hapless babus junior to them who obviously have a line of other miserable babus to forward them all to. Now if you think the buck stops at some babu hanging precariously on the lowest rung of this chain of hierarchy, you’re wrong. It is you who get to finally read or hear about them all and then blink like an idiot.

The babus have done their job of master-minding the creation of circulars that do little but circumnavigate the issues… and it is now your turn to sit on a merry-go-round that proclaims to be the most effective guide to all problems. Yes, I too have read a dizzying number of these obfuscating guidelines and went on with this act until I realized that I am that final idiot in the chain during this Covid-19 lockdown.

My woes do not end here.

With a tap and a peer into the screen of my smartphone I enter the intimidating world of social media. I am still yawning and rubbing my eyes and am obviously surprised to find people have already clicked the rising sun, made videos of colourful birds with complex names, or are sharing collages of ‘fresh blooms just peeping in through my porch’ – and I have no alternative but to rush out clutching my phone only to finding a few stubborn pigeons gawking at me, crows on the balcony ledge cocking their head arrogantly, and the bright light in the sky rudely informing me that the sun is already out patrolling but still on the other side of the thirteen-storey building that is next to my seven-storey midget construction. I bravely remind myself that there is a lot more that can still be done.

Really? What can someone be doing during lockdown?

I hurriedly open my smartphone again and have to hold on to the open door to prevent me from falling over because what I saw and read was enough to unsettle my CG (centre of gravity, in case you didn’t already know). The pages, you see, were flooded with men and women at work, biology at work, wizards at work, simply hard at work, advertisers at work, magicians at work, machines at work, lawyers at work, activists at work, whiners at work, winners at work, trouble at work, danger at work, wounded at work, idiom at work… and well, here I was, an idiot at work. During lockdown. Watching, hearing, listening, and wondering. How do they all keep doing something or the other? I mean, so much and so often? They were all like bright beacons lighting up every corner of the creative universe… and here was I standing next to a puddle and wondering if jumping over it would be a wise decision? Guide me, I shouted to no one in particular.

And then a little later I was besieged by the guides of the world during lockdown. You see, these guys who are out to guide everyone else do it in style. They’ll have a number of teasers and baits and warnings scattered all over all the social media platforms. And this is how it becomes impossible to miss them. They come with free ebooks and free webinars. They have free videos that will claim to solve all your problems or will teach you all that is to be taught. I remember what one of these guys in a free webinar on how to be an effective teacher, said: ‘The secret is simple. Be pro-active. You need to have a pro-active presence throughout the time you are interacting. If you are wondering now how to get a mindset that is always primed to proactive… well, there are seven easy steps that I can make you practice in my paid seven-day special online workshop on being pro-active. Now let us move on to the next step…’

It was the same with free anything on the web. They were all there willing to guide you, let you into unknown secrets, and lead you into the world that you have been dreaming about… until it is time to pop the ‘you need to pay for it’ question. This is when most people press the back button or simply move to another update. And I found that almost everyone I knew was actually an expert guide on something or the other. Yes, from writing a novel to witchcraft, thinking to love, house-cleaning to pregnancy, dancing to fasting, walking to jogging, and even from reading between the lines to drawing caricatures. There were so many people hustling one or the other art that it prompted me to wonder if there was anyone left remaining to learn anything. ‘Everyone is out to guide me,’ I said to myself, ‘and here I am choosing to remain away from these good people.’ So I did not catapult myself into becoming a ‘writer in 21 days’ or a ‘super salesman who can earn millions in less than a month’… not even one who could bake everything from a French clafoutis to Belgian waffles or Portuguese tarts!

You, said a voice within me, you are the idiot who could have learned a lot during this lockdown. And what did you do? Read. That’s it? Just read?

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘just read.’

‘Fast read?’

‘No. Just read’

‘With enhanced comprehension techniques?’

I said, ‘No, with just the kind of involvement that I was born with.’ Obviously I did not want to continue with this train of discussion. You see, it is impossible to argue with the spirit of getting ahead in life. It always stays ahead.

My lockdown routine had hours of wandering around on the social media and then settling down in a corner to read a book. You see, I have been buying a lot of books and quite a few of them have remained unread. There have been all sorts of books that I have read… you know, the kind you hold in your hands and the sort you just listen to with your earphones. I chose to read books written by people over people writing their clichéd ideas all over me. The lockdown, I’m sure, has managed to produce thousands of clones following similar fads and attitudes. I preferred risking being called an idiot than turn into a clone.

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The Blog train THE PANDEMIC THAT CHANGED OUR LIFE UPSIDE DOWN initiated by blogger Ila Varma  to bring the bloggers together to share numerous experiences of #pandemiclockdown2020.

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#quarantine #staysafestayhome #quarantineedition #pandemicdiaries2020 #positivityinlockdown #quarantineparenting #workingfromhome #boredombusters

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The next post in this blogtrain on the pandemic that turned our lives upside-down is by Surbhi Prapanna. Click here to reach her blog.

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Arvind Passey
07 June 2020