By Mahwish Bakht ;
The trends of life before Covid-19 were totally changed and based upon the individualistic approach. As people were busy in their professional commitments. Some were struggling hard and working whole day on a construction site to earn their daily wage. While others were enjoying the cool environment of offices, attending their meetings and making money. Students were going in routine to their schools, colleges and universities, meeting their friends and teachers, submitting assignments and passing assessments. At the end of each day of their semester, cafes were echoing with the enchanting voices of young students with these lines “Salam Chacha (general name called by male and female students to café waiters with respect) bring plate of pakoras (a traditional style of snacks in South Asian countries) and french fries with doodh pati (a traditional style of sweet tea prepared with the addition of cardamom and cream famous in subcontinent region for its fragrance and taste) for us”. Roads were busy with public transport (buses, auto-rickshaws, taxis, and pickup carriages), schools/colleges/university transports, private transport, cycles and trucks having loud horns and musical systems, trains were whistling on each station and airplanes were travelling within and across the borders consistently. Local and branded markets were opened and shops were heavily filled with the variety of products and goods according to the demands of customers. Textile, bags, shoe and other accessories brands were publishing and launching new volumes and articles with attractive offers and sales via social and local media. Women were struggling hard for shopping and fighting with other female customers to get the same article from these offers. Weddings, birth of new born and arrival of pilgrims were celebrated in homes and parties. Similarly, funerals were also attended by a large number of people, offering prayers and consoling the families for the loss of their loved one. On religious side, mosques, shrines, jamatkhana (a holy worship place for Ismaili sect), Imam-bargah (a holy worship place for Shia sect), mandirs, churches and Gurudwarah were performing their religious rituals on local and national level along with their preachers and followers.
States were striving for building their relations with other states and promote people to people connectivity through tourist industry. Tourist sites were opened and created simultaneously by the governments to attract and introduce the local and international tourists about their culture, natural beauty and provision of available facilities. In the meanwhile, investing in the tourist industry with the aforementioned vision would further help in its prosperity, support the small scale industry and raise the lifestyle of natives, simultaneously, open the corridor of foreign revenue for its own country. In the meanwhile, international and local news network were broadcasting all types of news round the world comprised of economy, trade and educational activities, international and national politics, technology, political and military alliances, inter and intra-regional conflict and peace development process, diplomatic ties, sports, film/drama industry, wild life, environmental, security and health issues, laws and policies, humanitarian and social crisis and many more. Hence, the design of life is entirely based upon the hustle and bustle, and race for progress. The meaning of life in this manner has set its new definition for the human population in the contemporary era. The individual living in this age has considered and accepted life in a more mechanical and robotic manner.
But it is the limitation of the thought process of mankind about life. With the massive achievements almost in all sectors through technology, humans have considered them as the milestone and way forward towards its final destination of evolution. These developments have convinced him to a larger extent that the present human is unbeatable, highly skilled and powerful against any crisis and uncertain situations. Nature always proves his wrong several times through different ways and gives him a wakeup call when nature changes its mood. The miscalculations done by humans about the nature by his heavy consumptions of its renewable and non-renewable natural resources, shelling bombs, building concrete buildings, massive urbanization and industrialization, deforestation, blindly indulged in the contest of proliferation of armaments, disturbing ecosystem, irrepressible air, land and sea traffic would never bring impacts on the nature. As all these measures ensured its tremendous victory and empowered the authority and control on earth and other planets. But how is it possible when a man is extracting all benefits at the cost of bringing imbalance in nature and not receiving any effect in return? The response of nature comes later and stays prolong until it recovers. It is solely the humans who are not learning lessons from history and persistently following their old patterns towards nature for their interests. When depletion achieved a certain level in the design of nature, then it hit back severely to mankind in terms of disasters, terrible calamity, volcanic reactions, wildfires, tsunami, earthquakes, landslides, tornadoes, heavy rains, terrific storms, famines and plagues.
The Covid-19 is also and once again the drastic consequence of mankind’s interference in the system of nature. With its outbreak, the entire global system stopped. All sorts of activities and activism in the human population and material world become paralyzed. Roads and streets are empty, markets are closed, hospitals and paramedical staff are working hard to save innocent lives, government officials are confused, scientists are unsuccessful in making vaccines against CoronaVirus in the presence of advanced scientific equipment, techniques and discovery of various generations in medicines. The wave of terror has prevailed severely in the minds of common masses. The government decision of lockdown and launching of awareness campaigns to convince their nationals to adapt preventive measures. The children and senior citizens are declared as the most vulnerable and easy target of the Novel virus by international health organizations. As a result of prevalent uncertain conditions, the society has shown its response in terms of frustration, sense of helplessness and resistance in the acceptance of pandemic existence and following of the government instructions. During these hard phases of illness, a ray of hope for life is still present.
Several indigenous languages, cultures, norms and practices are doused with globalization. With the rapid increase in the developments and scientific inventions, the family system is deteriorating rapidly in the world. While disrupting the global activities, corona virus has introduced a new way of living in the challenging situation on individual, national and international level. With the practice of social distancing and work from home, now the family members in one home are easily available for meeting and listening to each other in a more frequent manner. With this sense of national isolation and global solidarity, in the Asian society especially the Indo-Pak Muslim family system on domestic and international level has find another opportunity for its revival as the growing number of Muslim old houses was getting alarming before the outbreak of dreadful virus. It has reduced the sense of detachment between elderly people and the rest of the family members. It has also protected the society from the deleterious consequences of fragmentation on family system, moral and ethnic values with the emergence of certain popular cultures. Moreover, people staying all the time at home has magnificent impacts on building good close relations among family members. As they are learning, educating and utilizing each other’s skills and capabilities in resolving various basic/professional/study/job related problems by interacting and introducing different existent apps/techniques. I have also observed a spark, a courage and sense of unity among common masses during this highly crucial phase of their life where they are adopting all precautionary measures directed by higher authorities and international health organizations, limited their free movement and physical interactions inside and outside homes, praying to God for His help and mercy at home when all spiritual and holy places are closed, performing basic household tasks, taking care of their health for building immunity, competing collectively for day to day socio-economic challenges, hearing news about death trolls, infected cases and feeling low for the affected families.
I have seen people smiling and trying to make others smile in order to motivate them to spend critical time period with courage and hope. The colorful kites fly in the sky, the freely flocking doves, sparrows and pigeons in the air, glimpses of joy on youngster’s faces, wearing masks and gloves…. reciting holy verses on tasbih ( a string of small prayer beads to keep the track of counting tasbihat/short sentences for the praise of God) grandparents, old aged aunts and uncles sharing their ideas about the Novel virus, its prevention, appreciating the efforts of volunteers, doctors, other medical staff, armed forces and law enforcement agencies either sitting on distance or connected to their relatives via social media. They are also involved in the exchange of encouraging ideas to fight against epidemics. They are looking happily towards their young generations, telling them to maintain cleanliness and social distance within and outside their vicinity. People are involved in maintaining their group dynamics. They are contacting each other about their basic needs/health and safety conditions through calls/texts messages during the hours of curfew. Some have taken initiative based on the spirit of self-help for collecting funds to help the needy families and organizations that work for needy people. Young educated students are working voluntarily for providing door to door service in different areas. Local masses have also changed their patterns of meeting with others like they are waving and greeting each other from top floors, roofs and balconies. The clear blue sky, shiny sunlight, pollutant free fresh breeze, soothing environment, absence of vehicle horns and smoke shows the survival of life vigorously in a natural and vivacious style.
Author Introduction
Ms. Bakht is currently serving as a Lecturer in Department of International Relations & Peace and Conflict Studies (IR-PCS), National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad, Pakistan (mahwishbakht04@gmail.com)
