‘Where is your dog today?’ shouted a regular morning walker from across the road, as we passed each other on The Esplanade, along Canning River in Mount Pleasant, around 6 am this morning. It was still a little dark. Overhead, the sky was cloudy, threatening to pour. I stopped and turned my head to see who it was. Initially, I could not see his face well. In the past, apart from waving to each other and exchanging customary morning-greeting smiles, we had never ever spoken to each other. I stopped and shouted back, ‘He is home. This one is for us; we’ll reach home and then take him out for his walk.’ He smiled and waved back. I waved back and continued jogging double-paced with my wife, Rekha, who walked briskly by my side.
During all these past years, morning walkers are accustomed to seeing us regularly with Sakha, our nine-year Siberian husky, walking right between the two of us, with his characteristic bushy tail raised. And many of them enquire about him when he is not with us for any reason, for example, when rain is imminent. Anecdotally, in our suburb, we are nicknamed as ‘the couple with husky’. Sakha attracts the attention of most morning walkers who walk past us. They can’t hide their smiles. Sometimes, dog-lovers stop and ask if they can pat him. And we oblige. Sakha too complies; he enjoys the attention.
Before COVID-19, I would run alone a few times a week but after completing a customary 4-km walk with Rekha and Sakha. A week ago, however, we decided to make some adjustments to our respective routines in order to maximise the benefits of our morning exercise.
Sakha’s addiction to social media, interestingly, necessitated the aforementioned change. He tries to stop and sniff at every light-pole and every low bush he walks past, which is akin to reading messages on social media. At some locations, he also leaves his mark, which is not much different to leaving messages on social media. In his younger days, he was much more obedient to our command and not used to social media as much as he does now. To be fair to him and ourselves too, and after duly considering his relative seniority, we had to give in and let him have his own time to do his things his own way but, of course, without compromising on our morning exercise, which is so essential for our health during these days of Lockdown, especially, after we started working from home about three weeks ago. In a nutshell, our exercise time has now doubled, thanks to Sakha and COVID-19. Regular physical exercise, apart from numerous other health benefits, is understood to keep the body immunity level high, which is paramount for fighting COVID-19.
After Australian government announced social-distancing requirements about four weeks ago, Rekha and I voluntarily decide to work from home a week later, precisely from Tuesday, 19 March 2020. I recall how guilty I had felt a day earlier (on Monday, 18 March 2020) at my work place despite no such decision – to work from home – been taken by the office management. I decided to lead by example. On that day, I had felt as if I was letting down our global medical fraternity who had started exhorting people to stay home and maintain social-distancing so as to check the spread of the deadly virus. When I decided to work from home, Rekha too joined me, as it did not make any sense that one of us went out and got infected. Being an academic, she could do so although within the next couple of weeks or so, her university and most other universities in Australia started working on-line.
During the last three weeks, I have found myself working longer hours, albeit without experiencing any travel frustration or much work fatigue. I find much more time to do things than I would find before. My productivity as a professional engineering consultant, which is my day job, has increased considerably. My writing productivity, as a passionate writer, has also increased. I am gradually getting over the television and social media, which leaves me fresher to attend to more important chores of life. My exercise time too has increased considerably. Similar is Rekha’s experience.
The current COVID-19 has worked for both of us in so many ways. It has not affected our characteristically simpler lifestyle much except (a) putting a full-stop to our Friday night movies at the cinema, which I really loved; and (b) clipping our wings. A weekly 2-hour movie would bring a much-needed, refreshing change to me and was worth every cent we paid for it. It comprised a big chunk of my weekly entertainment. As for our travel, for a number of years, we have been frequently travelling, both domestically within Australia and internationally, with work or otherwise, after every two to three months.
During the last three weeks, our social life – in person – has taken a nosedive. But that has not made much of a difference to our lifestyles as, during the past few years, our work had kept us too busy to socialise except where absolutely necessary. On the whole, we find the new normal has brought a number of positives for us and perhaps for many people across the globe who share our experiences and thoughts.
Yesterday, on Easter Sunday, a client called in relation to the construction works currently being undertaken on a mining site. Construction works don’t stop on weekends or holidays. Suddenly, towards the end of our technical discussion, he asked, ‘Bill, what did you do this morning?‘, possibly referring to my attendance in the traditional Easter church service. I replied gently, ‘I did nothing. How about you?‘ With a tone of sadness, he replied, ‘I attended the online Easter church service. We have never done anything like that in the past. How strange is the current time!‘ I concluded, ‘We’ll never forget Easter 2020 for the rest of our lives‘ and he sighed in affirmative. Undoubtedly, life will never be the same after this.
About a month before the Lockdown, while driving to work on a busy Monday morning, out of my continually repeated realisation, I recall saying to Rekha, with a mix of sadness, hopelessness and frustration in my tone:
“Look at this traffic. How much time we all waste in these traffic jams? How much emission we produce that pollutes our air and the environment? Look at the faces of these other drivers around you. Does anyone look happy? Some are clipping and painting their finger nails, some are busy with their mobile phones, some are putting make-up on their faces, some are having coffee or breakfast and some are even reading a book.
When they reach office, they will be quite tired – mentally and physically – and possibly frustrated. Before starting work, they will first rush to kitchen and prepare a cup of tea or coffee for themselves. So much time is lost!
The same thing happens in the evening on their return from work. Our peak hour has almost tripled during these past two decades. All this leads to an unrecoverable loss of productivity – due to the time wasted on road while driving and then recovering at the work place.
Our country loses, our environment loses, we lose and our health loses. This lifestyle does not help anyone. But no one seems to be thinking. We need to push a reset button to slow down our lives. As one human race, globally, where are we all racing to? Most of us just exist. How many of us really know what it is like living life deliberately? Even at work, people cover their ears with earphones, disconnected from others. At their homes too, their excessive use of social media and addiction to television disconnects most family members from one another.
Nature must be watching us. Something will happen; something must happen to change how we live and perceive life.”
My those words proved prophetic, sadly in retrospective, considering all those precious lives being lost in the process, even as we speak. Although some readers may term this expression rather sadistic. It seems I may have been waiting for something to happen that would teach us all a lesson and bring us to our senses.
Most people ask these days, ‘How long will this Lockdown last?’ I think it is much more important to ask ourselves if we want to return to the same old world and to living the same old lifestyle that we had been living before the Lockdown. Should we not take this time to reflect on our lives and how we should live instead? Should we not take this Nature-given opportunity to make the necessary amends in our lives for the better?
After the passing away of COVID-19, the ‘new’ normal must be better than the ‘old’ normal that we lived before COVID-19. That ‘old’ normal brought us to this stage. Our future ‘new’ normal must be much more environmentally responsible, moral and conscientious, simpler and austere. This is the time to sit, reflect and develop good habits to help ourselves and our environment after this virus passes away. This Lockdown provides us with the opportunity to make the necessary amends in our lifestyle and thinking so that our children live in a better world.
Definitely, we can’t be myopic at this stage and mindlessly rush back to resuming what and how we were doing things before COVID-19. Because if we do, it will be our children and their generations who will pay for our willful negligence, carelessness and irresponsibility. Nature will repeat itself, history will repeat itself. Our future generations will never forgive us. After all, we adults are only temporary custodians of the mother earth.
COVID-19 has taught us many lessons that should stand by us in good stead but that much-needed learning will happen only if we are wise. We have realised the adverse effects of a growing human footprint on our environment, as well as a dire need to exercise a global population control. On national levels, we have learnt the benefits of self-reliance and, on individual levels, a timely need to lead a more austere and simpler lifestyle. After COVID-19, it looks insane if nations keep on spending zillions of dollars on weapons and war. Instead, one would wish that nations come together earnestly – in peace, harmony and sincerity – and invest in human health, education and fighting poverty and hunger.
One of the greatest challenges that each one of faces at present is to maintain good mental health. Only then we can look after our physical well-being and be able to carry on living our lives with sanity and working to some purpose, helping others too in the process.
Are we wise? Have we woken up? If not now, then when? What more must happen before we change for the better? Nature will keep beating us until we don’t improve.
… Bill Koul (Perth, Western Australia, dated 13 April 2020)