COVID-19 & The Art of Unclenching Your Fist

Abstract

Dr. AP, a senior doctor of a large teaching hospital, retired. A happy go lucky person with a large group of admirers consisting largely of fellow doctors, both young & old. He is a great party man, drinks & smoke on the house with his devoted fanfare partaking his lavish offerings. And then, one fine day, he contacts COVID-19 & is admitted in the very hospital where he had spent 30 years of his life. He develops respiratory distress… As I rush to attend the call, I am appalled by the look of the deserted corridors & waiting areas. I don’t see any known faces, none of his fanfare for sure. He lies struggling for breath on non invasive ventilation, confused & hypoxic. As he is intubated & put on ventilatory support at the insistence of his son, I reflect back on those days when he used to be surrounded by his friends, treating them to drinks. But today, when he needs their support the most, he is left alone, in his suffering, to fend for himself. Truly, we are indeed a death denying society. ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ (St.Paul, I Corinthians, 15:55) When it began, people thought, ‘It can’t affect me’. However, with time, they were increasingly confronted with the looming threat which threatened to disrupt the ‘web of illusion’ that they had created for themselves…an illusion, for the very world of existence is actually akin to an illusion, characterised by its transient nature. No wonder, our ancient sages called the world of existence ‘maya’. Then came the period of ‘lockdowns’ & the web of uncertainity surrounding it. People were in a fix, for in today’s tech-savvy existence, fostered by science & reasoning, they were now unprepared to spend time with ‘themselves’! The very Self was now seen as an alien being & was avoided. But as the lockdown prolonged, the monkey nature of the mind grew increasingly restless, demanding for more stimuli from the outgoing senses…and as the stimuli gradually dwindled amidst the lockdown, most c