Lockdown, Creativity and Social Connectedness
Abstract
Trauma is an unassimilated incident that shatters identity and remains outside normal memory and descriptive representation. Fragmentation or dissociation is viewed as the direct cause of trauma. Traumatic experience may never be narrated or identified clearly and it acts like a tumor in consciousness that wounds the self. It exerts a negative pathological effect on consciousness and memory that prevents the past from becoming incorporated into a life narrative. Literature is actively involved in shaping collective human consciousness. It is actively engaged in translating the unknown into known and attempts to negotiate the division between the known and the represented. The interpretation of trauma in a text allows for a marginal understanding of the unknown. It is the domain of literature to present, re-present, and dramatize trauma in its manifestations without making claims to precise definitions or complete thoroughness. Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) is transforming every aspect of our lives. Given the rapid acceleration of transmission and the lack of preparedness to prevent this virus, the negative impacts of COVID-19 are rippling through every facet of society. The present paper focuses on the psychological conditions and hidden traumas experienced by human beings during the pandemics. It also analyses fears and anxieties expressed through literary compositions not only by literary scholars but by all those who undergo this trauma not only at personal level but at a societal level.
Keywords: Trauma, Human Consciousness, Fear, Anxiety
Introduction
My restless mind keeps thinking
Of fevers, coughs and aching lungs
And the time that’s stolen, frozen, melting
Into the palm of my hand
But I release it and quivering wings
Flutter away slowly but surely
I breathe in the silence and it fills me
Like a balloon
Four walls of past, present, future, history
Here we are [The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)]
Psychological trauma, its representation in language and the role of memory in shaping individual and cultural identities are the central concerns that define the field of trauma studies. COVID 19 is not an individual sickness but a societal illness and this is the reason it is not labeled as a disease but an epidemic. Disease defines us, it narrates us. We know about its arrival but are completely unsure about its departure. What we are aware of, is its act. When the global focus has mostly been on testing, finding a cure and preventing transmission; people are going through countless psychological problems in adjusting to the current lifestyles. It has reflected different societies grappling with a wide range of issues including political, social, environmental, gender, educational, religious and psychological. There is confusion about the meaning of the word “pandemic” and how to recognize pandemics when they occur. The terms epidemic and pandemic were used vaguely and often interchangeably in various social and medical contexts. The first known use of the word pandemic, in 1666 referred to a Vernacular Disease. Two centuries later, in 1828, Noah Webster’s first edition of Webster’s Dictionary listed epidemic and pandemic as synonym terms. By the early 19th century, the term epidemic had become the accepted term for what we would call today both an epidemic and a pandemic. (Surendran, 2014) Literature presents and represents trauma in many manifestations without making claims to precise definitions or complete exactitude. Without negating the lasting and deep impact of trauma, postcolonial trauma narratives often demonstrate that resilience and growth are possible in the aftermath of traumatic wounding. Language becomes the means in achieving a measure of perceptive which defies reason. We attempt to convert the experience into narrative and thereby gain a measure of control over not only the event but also our response to the same. It becomes a means to save the self and its substance. Cathy Caruth writes in the introduction to her book Unclaimed Experience,
“Literature, like psychoanalysis, is interested in the complex relation between knowing and not knowing. And it is at this specific point at which knowing and unknowing intersect that the language of literature and the psychoanalytic theory of traumatic experience precisely meet.” (Caruth, 2016)
During the current pandemic, some of the professionals grabbed this opportunity to explore their hidden talent to show the world another side of their personality. An article Pen and Pandemic published in The Times of India dated 7th July 2020 says “The experience of the lockdown with all the accompanying emotions of fear, loneliness and uncertainty may have resulted in the birth of a new genre –Lockdown Literature.” Indian lyricist, poet and author, Gulzar, wrote a heartrending poem titled ‘Migrants, Covid-19’ on the migrant crisis amid the lockdown. The poem is a commentary on the mass migration post the lockdown announced in March to curb the spread of Covid-19. Migrant workers had been walking hundreds of kilometers to their villages on foot with minimum supplies, many losing their lives during the journey.
“Mahamari lagi thi gharo ko bhaag liye the sabhi
Mazdoor, karigar. Machine bandh hone lag gai thi shahar
ki saari unhi se hath paon chalte rehte the,
vagarna zindagi to gaon hi me bo kar aye the,”
(The epidemic had taken over,
All the laborers and workers were running towards their homes.
The machines in the city had stopped working,
The ones that was responsible for their livelihood,
The ones for which they’d left their lives behind in their villages.) (Sheh, 2020)
Technological change has repeatedly shaped and reshaped the relationship between work and home. Over the past few months, coronavirus pandemic has forced millions of employees in the world to begin working from home. The home-work boundaries of most office workers approximate the dominant cultural pattern and mental ‘fences’ that separate home and work. These are reinforced by the daily routine. Morning routines like dressing for work, saying goodbye to family, traveling, traffic, greeting coworkers assist with the mental transition from the family to the work domain and the same process reverses in the evening. (Carrie A Bulger, 2007)
Not just listening, but writing poetry also seems to be having a similar effect on people. Aditi Ganesh 30-year-old techie says “I needed motivation during the lockdown. So I gave myself the task of writing a small verse daily. The fact that others related to it and gave me feedback, made me write more and it stayed on as a habit,” Nineteen-year-old Betilda shares, “For an extrovert like me, being confined at home caused frustration and anxiety. Poetry gave me the confidence to share my work on a public forum and get out of my comfort zone.” (Chakravorty, 2020) Binodan Sarma Vice President Digital, at Dentsu Impact took this time as an opportunity to express his feelings for his lady love in his poem Our Love, My Love:
“We shall now no longer
Meet in the crowd
Or steam glances
Between others’ laughs.” (Sarma)
Psychologist, Sharanya Jithin decodes that writing is scientifically proven to help people understand themselves better. She explains. “In therapy, we use writing to help our clients deal with their unresolved issues and pent up emotions. In the current scenario, writing helps one reduce the lurking anxiety that’s fuelled by the uncertainties of life. Writing helps one channelize their emotions and visualize how they’re feeling. This is the best way of self-care in order to keep a check on our emotions and thoughts,” (Chakravorty, 2020) Ashudeep Chadha , Founder and Group CEO in On Demand Agility expressed her emotions about this lockdown period in her poem “Let’s Parent our Minds”
“The silent house
The quiet lane
The deserted look
The neutral steer with no momentum from a gear
The missing calendars
The emptiness in abundance
The unshaken hands
The legs abandoned
With useless projections,
Hanging transactions
Lost timelines,
And Alas! With no insight!
The far away children
Sounding sweet
And I thinking the voice echoed out of borders
As they are fencing street
The Old parents divided by a highway tweet.
The spread out siblings
The virtual friends
The drained coffees
The lonesome diners
And Alas, with none reminders!
All came and knocked at my door
As loud as a human roar
And to parent myself from head to heart
And make me wear a uniform to inform
And act upon to nurture a big reform
Clean air, food by hands, sleep on bed
Will win the MARS
Globetrotting is not the answer of all
Until you bring full marks
Dreaming of straight lines
Optimizing the circles
Simple thinking, living nice with low price
Will pour the shine on your sky
To rekindle the cells of life
And will make you all Survive
Board meetings
Hard resolutions
Thundering bottom lines
Flying flights and still no light
Chasing investors to sit on a side
Asking me to train my adult mind
And think alike as the time needs to be revived.” (Chadha, 2020)
Conclusion:
Lessons learned from the COVID-19 outbreak in different countries showed that strict regulations and proper precautions should be announced and implemented as early as possible. All in all, psychological intervention services have become a must in order to alleviate patients’ and family members’ concerns and reduce public stress. Because of increasing sections of humans and animals some of which are reservoirs of deadly viruses, we cannot expect Covid-19 to be the last pandemic to strike humanity. It will be the collective realization of our kinship with the living planet that will determine what awaits us on the long road that stretches beyond the dark mountains of the present. And literature surely will play a major role in changing the mindsets of people; if not scientifically then emotionally.
Works cited:
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Dr. Sapna Sharma, Amity School of Liberal Arts, Amity University Gurugram E mail: sapnajoshi2009@gmail.com