PLAY... FF… PAUSE… PLAY

Think of all the stories from the 80s/90s we tell (or hear) when a car (read Maruti) was considered a luxury or the only way most people saw an airplane was when it roaringly flew overhead. When the summer vacations meant nani ka ghar and eating out was maybe once a month and that too mostly chaat, idli-dosa or chowmein. When we played chhupam chhupai, ikkal dukkal, gitti phod, kanche and flew kites. When we spent most of the time at home with our families or when we physically visited people to meet them. When we bought new clothes only at Diwali / Eid / Christmas and if we were nice then for the birthday as well. When a camera roll could only snap 36 pics which even how hard we tried to carefully click would end up with 5-6 out of focus or over exposed. When the starting salaries, even for IIT / IIM graduates, were just Rs 5,000-10,000 a month. When buying a house to live in was the prime goal. When SENSEX was about 500 while most people invested their savings in FDs which doubled the money in 5 years.

Well… life was in PLAY mode.

Then came the new century… And we got into the FAST FORWARD mode.

GDP accelerated from 4.4 percent a year during the 1970s and 1980s to 5.5 percent during the 1990s-early 2000s, and further leapfrogged to 7.1 percent. From almost vacant roads in 1980, we catapulted to 210 million vehicles in 2015. In 2018, almost 14 crore Indian Nationals flew, out of which 2.6 crore travelled abroad (as compared to 44 lacs in 2000). The frequent flier status defined the social status. Malls and restaurants mushroomed, and we bought clothes and ate out whenever we wished as income levels sky-rocketed. We bought stuff on credit and took loans to buy multiple houses. Advent of mobile phones made us too busy for simple pleasures of life and internet overloaded us with information that we didn’t want or need. Social media added on the pressure of being ‘liked’ as we clicked billions of pictures which we rarely ever saw again. SENSEX roared to 40,000 but we wanted more. “I am too busy” and “Time hi nahin milta” became the oft used remarks to define one’s importance. Forbes 30-under-30 or 40-under-40 were the lists that we vied for. We were all in a hurry, wanting too much too soon.

Needless to say… we got into the FF (Fast Forward) mode.

And then came the PAUSE… We know it by the name of ‘Coronavirus’

In almost no time, the world has come to a screeching halt. All that was thought to be ‘very’ important is suddenly not so anymore. No more travel, no more meetings… heck, no more office or parties. No more eating out and no shopping. SENSEX has not paused but gone into REWIND. Politics, CAA, NRC has all taken a back seat as humanity gets together to fight the invisible enemy which is silently killing people all over the world without differentiating class, colour, nationality, race, gender or religion. Shops that couldn’t shut down even for a day are now shut for weeks. Whether one believes in God or Nature, the PAUSE is a clear message to us that we are screwing it up. Rising global temperature was maybe a symptom, a signal that it was high time we come out of the FF mode but of course we didn’t heed. Figuratively, our Parents bear our tantrums, demands and mischiefs to a certain extent till one day they lose patience and make us grounded. This is exactly what has happened as we all sit at homes, grounded, for all the disrespect, hurriedness and selfishness.

I hope we have learnt our lesson and once the God’s (or Mother Nature) anger cools down and we are allowed to go back to our regular routine, we would be in the PLAY mode yet again.

#staysafe #stayhome #coronavirus