So a fortnight more of staying at home, washing hands, cleaning utensils and scampering with whatever work that needs to be done in between all of this.
Some might say it was inevitable, others might say maybe not, the latter more frustrated over how restrained life has become because of the pandemic.
India has been divided into three categories: Red, Orange and Green. It would be lovely if a talented writer in the Green zone describes how it feels to lead a normal life. How it feels to drive on the road at any point in the day to everyone stuck suffering in the Red zone.
The talk of livelihood taking preference over lives after 40 days of lockdown has grown with each passing day and it was but inevitable that this progression of thinking was going to happen.
India, for as much as it wants to be, is still some distance away from becoming the developed economy that all want it to become and so how people get food to eat every single day, how they have enough in hand to pay rent and how they have something to wear each day does matter.
So the fact that the government has relaxed norms in a lot of Green zones and partially done the same in Orange zones is an indication they are inclining to the thinking of getting lives back on track.
But should this entirely take precedence now? Can the government say, ‘Right, let the corona virus be where it is, we will try and build India from its roots, in the villages, by getting industries, by offering jobs, by steadily looking to try and reach the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimate rate of 7.4 percent?’ or will they cripple in fear over a recurrence of the virus in such areas?
It is an important decision that the government must take. With more and more aversion to investment against China from around the globe, the pandemic presents India with a superb opportunity to get manufacturing units to its country.
And how better to do that then begin in the small towns? The bigger metropolitan cities are for a change in more trouble and this is across India and that presents the others a chance.
The developments will not happen immediately, but if the cases in the Green zone remain where they are and if more Orange zones merges into Green, then there is a definite reason for the government to bring the foreign investment into these areas.
The lockdown phase in India began as a measure to try and curb something that we all thought was perhaps just a remainder to how granted we had taken our lives for and why a phase like that was needed to get us back to the ground.
That was evident when many of us began to do things that we don’t have experience of doing and now 40 days into the lockdown, it is as much as a part of our daily routine as sending an Excel chart to our bosses is.
Now, despite the overall numbers reflecting a grim state of affairs, the fact that the country can be divided into zones where there are no cases present is a sign of promise.
Can the government convert them into places that bear fruit is one we will know in the coming days.
