Ravi Tandukar

When famous celebrities started to post their vents in social media about being ‘locked up’ in their own houses in the current situation brought on by COVID-19, many vented against them in return, ranting and blaming them for their spoilt child syndrome. True, how could they complaint? After-all they are living in their sprawling mansions complete with massive pools, gardens, personal staff, basically everything money can buy. That is in complete contrast to us mere mortals who have to make do with our mortgage bound little dwellings in the suburbs. Lockdown has left us unable to venture freely anywhere except for occasional visits to grocery stores, walks or joggings around our area, or for lucky few beaches and swims in the oceans. Well when the disease first started to make headways, though precautionary, we were allowed to work from home in shifts. Pretty quickly that became a national order and we have our asses glued to our home office chairs since. True to its appeal, work from home, it was very exciting at first. You get to stay home and earn! Thanks to technology and my profession, it was really fortunate I could do it, since so many have lost their jobs. Economy is sliding backwards down the hill and things could start to look really ugly if the lockdown continues to keep offices and shops closed, streets deserted. Like I said, it was exciting at first, get to stay home, enjoy backyard and finally get to spend all waking hours with family instead of toiling away at work.

Well, soon afterwards though, different sets of reality start to set into your life, and this is not working from home you used to have before, not the same at all. With early morning meetings, back to back calls and not really being able to pull away from desk, because everyone is at home, everyone knows this is how it is for everyone, will result in you working much more than you were at work, from the dawn to dusk. You cannot really venture outside due to lockdown, all you have is an outing to your backyard chair and staring to far away sky, rain or shine. That is if you are lucky to have a backyard, if you live in an apartment, the only ‘backyard’ would be your balcony, so a real feeling of being trapped.

The lofty things you thought you could do working from home, like gardening, cleaning up your sheds, reorganising your closets, have a nice family lunch, spending quality time with your family, actually hardly materialize. You are home bound, but not at home really. Your life is still sucked away by work, actually end up working more hours. This is a real secret the employers should have found out earlier, before Corona happened, people actually put in more hours, more intense hours, like it or not. For parents with young ones, the little princes and princesses will appear completely different, they turn into little monsters, interrupting your calls, work, jumping into your keyboards and chucking those long tantrums in the middle of your conference calls. Suddenly you realize how the in laws or parents that you conveniently dropped off your little princes and princesses to coped with these crazy little humans :-), and how thankful you are to them now. Now that they have full access to you, you have no place to run of hide either, you have to play with them like it or not, let them climb all over you, let them hit your head or face as they show their affection to mummy or daddy the way they know best, wait for them to fall asleep during their naps in the afternoon, change nappies while clutching your mobile between your jaw and your neck, regardless of whatever you are in the middle of. Remember those families complaining, who returned from overseas flights and were taken straight from airports to being locked up in five star hotels for a two week quarantine? Imagine how they lived for those fourteen days crammed together in their golden cages, young kids and parents, with no escape, not even allowed to go down to hotel lounge or gardens.

Joy and stress all coin up together into this mushy confusing fur ball you never imagined  was a part of working from home. Hmm, it dawns on you finally, the combination of lockdown and working from home this time around, is not a holiday after-all.

But at least you have Netflix, you scan still continue to flash watch ‘Tiger King’ in the evenings, and you discover suddenly how many cats and dogs your neighbours have, how they sound, that tree in or next to your house and those birds who call those trees home. Your life starts to resemble the roulette wheel, only that it is a predictable one this time, and you know that is going to hit you in the morning, its a full circle you now know very well. Or you might feel like you are running on a hilly road with infinite number of ups and downs, sun shines, you start your day with morning Webex meetings, intermittent breaks with walks in the backyard, intense work, more online meeting, then suddenly you realize it is 5 or 6 pm, day seems to slowly fade, but your work is still humming, suddenly you realize its dinner time. Do your chores, have some TV time with your family, some more work on that laptop you have kept it humming, and before you know it it is mid night. And the dread sinks in without any warning, you have about 6-7 hours to settle your mind, sleep, and the cycle starts again tomorrow. There is no break, variety of pattern to your day. Suddenly you realize how much you would enjoy your daily drive or even that daily commute to work you hated so much, those coffee breaks with colleagues, banters, walks around work. You might still be a modern day slave that you call yourself, but now those little freedoms seem so savoury, valuable, just can’t help missing it.

With no end in site for lockdown yet, your cravings will only increase. But hope you spend your time wisely and achieve something other than lost hours at work and meetings. Make sure you refresh old or earn some new learnings, give yourself a chance to spend some time on your hobby you wanted it so badly, talk to your family, so that you have something to show for once the light appears at the (end of the) tunnel eventually. Just remember, nothing in life is free, but I am sure freedom will taste lot better then!

Australia has been in lockdown for over a month now, as the most of the world. The novelty of working from home, posting isolation memes has started to wear off and people are getting into trouble with police flaunting the rules of social distancing and isolation. Isolation..think about it, in a developed nation, this is straight out of a zombie movie without people ever realising what they are going through. With economy surely heading to recession, people not sure if they will still have their jobs standing after the crisis is over and simply the fear of uncertainty is slowly dawning in for a lot of us. Is this the time for everyone to rethink how they will live the rest of their lives? Are you forced to think of prioritising and basically recalibrate your career and life as you know of? Well if you have been procrastinating and using lack of time as an excuse, that does not hold water anymore. There are surely opportunities simmering in all industries, areas with everyone staying home and pattern potentially settling in as our habits. As an example, I hear things like if you are looking for a change in IT Online Home schooling is one hot topic that seems to be rising above in discussions. May be it is time to bring out that idea you had to quit your job and start something out of the back burners.

God made heaven and earth, everything else was Made in China, that surely cannot be the case now, for many reasons as demonstrated by recent events. One huge basket holding all your eggs is definitely something you need to think about and resolve. And did the virus actually avert the third world war? Or is it laying seeds for one? Looking at the clearing of pollution, better air quality and cleaner planet, its not all doom and gloom then? Also hasn’t it brought us together, for most of us anyway? Unless unfortunately for those who are stuck with their abusive family, husbands, partners, employers. Or what about God’s cat and mouse game with most intelligent of his creations, game of life and death, I will create new ways to kill you, and see how you dodge the bullet on this one.

What about the macro economy of the world? How will it change the way we do trades, live our lives, consumption, and most importantly heath systems? As we saw clearly what profession is key to our survival. Boris Johnson said he owed his life to the doctors and nurses who looked after him during his ICU stay due to the virus.

We are still going through the tunnel and many say it is just the beginning, we are still navigating the turbulent waters, with virus floating underneath and hiding in the corners, ready to pounce on us or our loved ones, a dooms day, end of the tunnel scenario, but scarily not far fetched anymore given the number of skyrocketing deaths. Governments are trying not to alarm and rock the boat, and have kept the music playing so that no one panics. And we can speculate but may be still too early to know what is going to hit us next at national level, virus mutations or jobs, our mortgages, finances, personal lives and family. As the virus ravages and mutates race is on to find the vaccine, cure. Until then so called quarantine and isolation is just a waiting game, a wave of deaths up and down based on our common sense, to follow rules, to not infect others. We don’t know yet if there is light at the end of the tunnel, there probably is, there has to be, no tunnel can be an eternal horizontal hole, but just in case, yeah, we don’t know what’s waiting at that end, or in the next corner for that matter.

For a split second, a thought crossed my mind, like a sudden brush of cold breeze, could ‘God’ be a brand exploited since ancient times, a psychological exploitation? Thinking about it made me really look into the underbelly of all our belief systems. So let us imagine for a moment a full fledged God industry, totally congruent with what we know as commercialism, marketing, capitalism, socialism, complete with different key players selling their own products, brands, merchandise, offers. Come to Jesus, he is the only one who can rescue you. No, its Shiva and Rama who can do that for you. so follow us! No, it is Allah or Buddha or Mary and so forth.  They all said that, and the humanity is spoilt for choice. They all have their products and offers lined up, well packaged and ready for distribution. They they have their ambassadors, their models, resellers, vendors, debt collectors, promotional events, all carrots and sticks in place better than any company or industry ever known to men. Honesty is taboo, boring and joke as in any commodity line. All of them claim to have same basic elements – humanity, kindness, honesty, truthfulness and so forth. But all the products have the key ingredients highly processed, adulterated, diluted and as a result, very little of that remains in the final version. Instead of shopping malls they have churches, temples, mosques and monasteries. All beautifully built and crafted with very high ceilings, artwork, paintings to attract the devotees, complete with a beautiful model in long white or yellow or vibrantly coloured robes, long beard, beautiful face to draw in the awed and believers. Who thought trade and commercialism are product of recent and modern capitalism? We had it embedded, alive and kicking into our societies from long time ago, an awakening. Not only they take care of your needs in this life, even the post mortem is planned and insured, you will go to the gates of hell or into the arms of your long bearded handsome saviour based on their own criteria. What could be more advanced? The only requirement is you have to close your eyes of wisdom, you have to ‘trust’ and ‘believe’ them. Its like buying from a high end supermarket, the product is so candidly presented, wrapped up in such unescapable attraction, you close down your eyes of common sense, you basically lose yourself, give in, surrender. You don’t want to open your eyes, they would forbid it! They will tell you you need to have a total and unquestioned belief, in other words, be dumb, can not question anything they preach. And you oblige, because you don’t have to think, you don’t have to lead. You only have to be a part of the herd and follow,  easy and delivered to you on a platter. No need to open your eyes and try to make your own path.

And they can be proper tools to advance other causes, increase your influence, territory, impose your culture onto others, ensalve entire countries and civilizations, like East India company did to Indian subcontinent, like the mercenaries did to Indonesia and other parts of South East Asia, Africa, South America, North America. It was never only the product that could satisfy masses’ search for belonging, fear and obsession, it was a crusade, a religious duty to spread words of your God and in the process trample whoever comes in the way, colonise and brutalize, all valid, in the names of heaven.Yet the brand is so attractive and the beauty of the God figure is so hypnotising, the same enslaved ones do not have any problem joining the fan club, and become fanatical supporters. In short, brainwashed with brand loyalty to the point they are oblivious to their brand ambassadors and promoters committing most heinous of crimes like child sexual abuse, promote killing of women for perceived minor of offences, or crushing of your own culture and language, roots. Who cares where the iPhone is made or who made it as long as I can have it!

Lungs of the planet are burning, in Amazon forests. Some bloody loggers set fire to it. World leaders are paying attention, Brazil is on focus again, for wrong reasons. Luckily, Sydney is a city full of trees. The street I live in, is lined with trees and has greenery all around. I am eternally grateful.

But I love trees for different reason, and it has always been this way. I love trees, because they give us books. I mean apart from breathing the planet, catching pollution and making rain, they give us paper, which makes books.

From childwood, being a bookworm, I felt closer to books than to any human being. Well, being a loner helps in that regard. Books were the vehicles that took me far away, around the world, in the worlds of characters I could only dream of. They gave me eyes that allowed me to peer into the worlds of ancient societies from England to Tibet, modern lives of Tokyo to New York. I lived through the stories, the characters, journeys, treks, pain and horror. Who invented this miracle? Trees connect to soil, to other plants, animals, humans. They gave humans the vehicle to start what we know as the knowledge, wisdom, on whose foundations our understanding of everything grew, as we became the most powerful dwellers of this planet. From the trees, to paper, to knowledge and power, I am now able to connect the dots.

And I love trees because they give libraries, which are full of books. There was certain joy and pride carrying books from and to International libraries in Kathmandu when I was still in high school. The insatiable hunger of my teenage curiosity was only just satisfied by reading everything I could find in those libraries – literature, travel, sports, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, the story of The face on the wall in a short story from English writer E V Lucas, Rose from Tibet, Seven years in Tibet, and probably the most memorable were Tin Tin and Asterix and Oblix comic books. The British library in Kantipath moved to Maharajgunj. There used to be a Russian library in Putalisadak, a small Chinese one at Basantapur near the end of Jhochhen. The American library used to be at the heart of New Road, later moved to Naxal. All these libraries were where I used to spend most of my waking hours apart from schools, and shaped up my young mind, filling it with thrills, joy, sadness, happiness and just pure anticipation of what more is there! I was following top european soccer leagues – English, German, Spanish, French when I was barely twelve; in sync with the celebrities in tinsel towns in the US and Europe, the Rolling stones magazine used to be big back then too.

Other reason I love trees is because they give shade. Imagine sitting under the shadow of a tree on a hot day, with a cool breeze up in the hill looking down the fields in a remote village. The peace and tranquality they bring is something that cleanses your soul, the soothing breeze that seems to exist only under them is something I crave for everyday. Even one fully grown tree can turn your backyard from hot oven to a soothing cool sanctuary.

And of course there are forests. I remember walking inside the dense lushness at Cumberland forest in the NorthWest of Sydney while working for IBM is something I will always miss. Tall trees giving way to a lush walkways, hiding little ponds and bushes, it was a place for Nirvana.

Thank God for trees, the source of books.

Spending last few hours of the weekend before dragging your sorry ass off to work on Monday morning is a de facto modern life for the most living in the city. Today while flicking through Netflix, I ran into a doco about making of space ships and all the technical marvels involved. The narrator was unblemishingly showcasing how complicated it is to maintain the living condition inside the ship for astronauts once it is in the space, hanging hundreds of kilometres above Earth. All the air that has to be manufactured there, the water systems, the plumbing, the air pressure and communicaitons, protection from the heat and cold, harmful rays, travelling space debris and meteorites. It sounded quite a miracle such a thing could be made by humans, quite and achivement!

Then something hit me, forcing me to look up and stare at the ceiling. The earth has been providing this, almost effortlessly, for billions of years, for billions and trillions of creatures who come and go. Enough said, mother nature.