“RED! ORANGE! GREEN, GO!!”
With 733 states categorized by MHA into three different buckets with a lotta guidelines implying a gradual lifting of lockdown barriers, and Chief of Defense Staff General Bipin Rawat deciding that armed forces would put up some kind of show of support for the Covid19 warriors, the government seems to have decided to gradually move on from the pandemic.
After over 40 days of lockdown many of us feel like if today we are told that all restrictions are off, we would just go berserk with binge eating, club hopping, back to back movies in theatre and lots and lots of shopping. Also don’t forget all the pending travel plans. World would be in one festive frenzy.
Really? Think again.
Initially when lockdown was announced and all the restrictions were put into place, it had become very very difficult for people to get used to the change. The party generation which had to hit the pub for weekends or go loitering with their friends in evenings had to sit with their families for hours every day. Husbands who used to relish the comfort of their offices now had to juggle work along with entertaining kids and wives. Housewives could no longer find me-time to gossip with their friends over phone, or go for that yoga class, or walks in the park where colony grapevine would have their meetings. It was frustrating for everyone alike. Not even going into the economic troubles of the unorganized daily wagers. We all saw enough crying faces in news.
Some one said it takes 21 days to cultivate a new hobby. I am not sure, but 40 days is a long time enough to get over a burn.
Have you ever touched a burning hot vessel, or skinny dipped into a cold pool?
The feeling of immense warmth or cold is momentary sensation recognized by brain, once it passes away the body doesn’t feel anything. Body adjusts to the temperature and adapts to the external environment. Unless the burn caused your skin to swell, or cold gave you frost bites, you are just fine.
It is the same. You are used to this life now. Any change will be appreciated, any small moment of joy will give you immense pleasure but you will never be able to go back to your old life.
Just the way after a sudden fall in stock price due to a false speculation the price jumps up, we will surely see a frenzy of activities once lockdowns are lifted across the country. But seasoned stock market folks know that the price jump carries some inertia with it which makes it go much higher than the real valuation, and then comes the second fall which then ends somewhere at a point lower than the old price.
If you were someone who used to party every week, you probably realize after 8 weeks that it was never that important. All the ones with ‘4 tickets a month’ pass from Bookmyshow are probably right now wondering why was it a big deal; Netflix and chill seems a better option. And many would definitely by now have realized that they could do lot better than those overpriced Swiggy deliveries.
With all the chatter being about food for daily wage workers and economic relief package for suited industrialists, somewhere everyone has decided to purposefully ignore the so called privileged middle class. Let us not ignore ourselves please.
No matter what everyone says, things are no longer going to be the same for us. Many of us have lost faith over mutual funds, some have lost money they have put on mid-cap or small cap stocks, the large cap stocks are as good as money kept under my pillow. Some have been put on leave of absence by their employers, while others are facing pay cuts, bonus and increments deferred. We work for 12 months and suddenly one bad month wipes away our hard-work.
It will take us some time to let out a loud laugh, scared that what calamity might soon befall upon us now. With FD rates giving tough competition to inflation rates, hard earned money losing its value, saving tendencies are bound to go up and expenditures are bound to go down.
Beaches will soon see tourists, airports will soon be bustling, malls will once again be places of merry making, the price rally with inertia will settle back, but to a new normal, which will be a little different from our old normal.
The Loony Tales 