Not-so-strangers in our lives….Realised in Lockdown | Dr. Jyotsna Amin.

‘Human being is a social animal’, ‘People can’t live without each other’, ‘You need friends and family to live as a person’…And much more is false today.

In today’s world where all of us are forced to live alone, with blood relations or partners as a result of teensy-weensy virus called Corona Virus-2019. Yes, corona virus is worldwide today. We are slowly realising how important some strangers are to us. The girl with twisted ponies with dimpled smile, the watchmen of college, the classroom cleaner, the head cleaner with whom we loved to bicker, the peon and the guy from Dahod station in train and so many more. Don’t ask their names; we didn’t ask and never will. But still they were a steady part of our daily routine. We don’t know their name, caste, family or background and yet we form a bond with them. In country like India that says a lot about human nature. We have made them our family, a part us of which we only share with ourselves. Do we tell about how the head peon got engaged yesterday to your mom dad or friend? Do we discuss these small details? Of course, not. Still, they stay with us almost forever. And this is what makes these tiny things register in our brain.

You are probably wondering why I am penning ‘we’ instead of ‘i’ because this is the condition which is not only mine, but of anyone who has lived enough to see 2019. There are many things and people which we forsake as unimportant, which are eager to fill the empty hole in our chests.

A five-year-old wants to tug at the stair railing which ̶ in spite being told a billion times not to do ̶ he pulled to irritate his teacher. That introvert who sat on the last bench of 10 th F, she’s missing the eucalyptus tree beside her school, which gave her inspiration to write many long articles in boring S.S or Science classes. That teacher, who hated other’s gossip, wants to hear the gossipy voice of her colleagues.

Personally as a teacher I am missing my ‘chalk and duster’ and oh...how could I forget, the blackboard. You would probably say ‘madam, zoom and other apps has the function of whiteboard’, but it’s not the writing part that I am missing. What guts me is the yearning for the smell of chalk or ink and the feel of the board under my hand as I write the morning quote at the top, in the homeroom. Today the tea of canteen which I absolutely despised, is sounding appealing, I want to meet that cleaner which we all loved to hate (we all have that one person in our workspaces which is like that) and I am missing the chat-chat-chattering of the class as I write something on the board, plus the surprise on their young faces as I point them out.

Will this end quickly? I don’t know. How many of these strangers in our lives will live? I don’t know. Will I live? I don’t know. But yes I do know that COVID-19 has taught us the pricelessness of these so called unimportant things. Like I said in the beginning people may not die as a result of lack of friends and family, but yes they are so sad its worse than death.

It is also a wonder when and if we meet these strangers. It might all go back to normal. Although in case we don’t meet some of these strangers, we are going to wonder, are they dead or are they somewhere else? A pause button has been pressed and we are trapped in the time, it seems. Everything has stopped abruptly, and if we don’t meet our colleagues, friends, classmates, strangers, etc. we would never get a closure. As a teacher’s heart always want to go to school – not for the building but for the learning and of course for want to hear “Good Morning, miss! I really miss it. What and whom do you miss?

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