The young doctors agreed that she suspected my illness to be stage of corona. My getting tests was too premature and after four days I must get tests done again. It seemed to me that all other kinds of diseases and illnesses were either out of fashion or of low gradation that did not deserve attention of a known medical practitioner. Initially, I felt flattered that I am in the higher bracket of society that is generally affected by his higher kinds of ailments and not ordinary discomforts like blood pressures, diabetics and such.

But she took away my breath by putting out on phone a long list of precautions that I am expected to observe. You cannot move out of your room or receive friends and guests. If such meetings are unavoidable then keep mask on your mouth cut the meeting to bare essential. Above all wash your hands after coming to your room. Bemused by her instruction, I asked for whose benefit do I wash my hand? You suspect me to be infected and not my friend. In fact they should be advised to clean their hands. Her reply was you are now becoming cynical. I am repeating the standard set of precautions. I saw no further point to argue with her. I could not even point out that standardized precautionary measures were hammered out under the political supervision to keep citizens under perpetual threat and make them feel obliged to government for their survival.

I had seen eight decades of life, and virtually felt not obliged to anyone as they had virtually taken away all fun for living and pleasures of living. I still recall we had to walk a long distance to reach the clinic but not long enough for hiring Tonga wala. We had three cars in the taluka town by total population of 22359. Even in Delhi where I began working as a journalist, in 34 news paper offices, only five had cars provided by their offices, eight had two wheelers, but remaining 22 were dependent on public transport services. I will remember I had not air conditioner either in my office or at my home.

The climate was more severing then. Air conditioners, motor vehicle began becoming a rage only after 91, after Narsimha Rao was forced to adopt the capitalism under the pretext of saving the Indian economy that otherwise would collapse. The communism had collapsed in Russia in 1989 and China had thrown open the restrictive economy structure in China. India was the last to change and give up her economy. But it opened everything else also. Offices, stores etc began having centralized air conditions. Most shops and stores also got their kerosene or diesel based power generators. The jeweler’s stores were decorated like unusual jewel shops as they were earlier. Everything was converted to be costly decorated making growth of costly shops. We did not have to pay higher costs or higher products. Even for pollution, we were asked to pay for.

In first forty years from independence in 1947, India saw six Prime Ministers, three of old generation, one woman who grew up in pre-independence era but came to politics only in post independence era. First Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was shaken by collapse of his efforts to build third powerful world group by the betrayal of China in 1962, could not survive and passed away in May 1964. Choice of Lal Bahadur Shastri, a man from poor family of Allahabad, was completely in variance of first choice, denoting internal strength of Indian democracy, collapsed as others in his party could not understand his choice of solution for relations with Pakistan. Indira Gandhi followed Shastri as the least unacceptable though she emerged at the most powerful woman leader in 1971. Morarji Desai came in 1977 and brought down in 16 months for yet another old man Charan Singh to follow though for him India was area from Baghpat his hometown to Jhansi, southern most district town of his state. In his lifetime he had not seen any other part of India except Awadi, town near Nagpur in 1956. Indira Gandhi returned to power in dramatic fashion in 1980 with realisation of wrong policy framework in her earlier stint but without courage to transform. In 1984 her elder son Rajiv Gandhi won massive mandate but without clue to govern the great democracy or humans of wide variety of temperaments.

In 1980, Indira Gandhi unleashed the captive of Indian mentality to prepare them to take advantage of fast changing world. They had to wait for a decade for the first Congress regime without shadows of Nehru Gandhi family government to open two sectors of private sector participation. And life for Indians began to change rapidly. From 1947 to 1992 for 55 years, we were drifting along in same pace without much change though the world had begun to change at much rapid pace with science delivering new invention every day. In the next three decades, two new generations of Indians had increased the pace of economic development three times, Middle class becoming largest in the world with poor below poverty lines getting to be less than 20 per cent in proportion of population. Then came the strange phenomenon of Indians electing the lotus symbol to rule.

How strange! The nine months of the Lock down converted this middle class into cowards to get locked up in their home for safety. I am now part of it. Even my grand-daughter tells me not to move to other parts of the house. The medical woman tells me to remain in my bed and shun my social contacts so much as for my safety as much as required for their safety. Life for eight thousand years from cave age to the Modi era was to enhance social relations, now it is in reverse.