COVID Conquest — How Indians Are Treating The Pandemic With Their Illusions?
From the time Covid 19 has hit India, I don’t know why I am, or rather I would say most of the Indians are chilled out. The whole lockdown time looked like a time to rejoice, spend evenings with family, relatives, friends, or just simply laze around. The casual thought process has bought immense happiness in most of our lives. We felt it is a life-time opportunity to spend so much time in our native. Although deep inside, most of the Indian men were worried about how to cope up with the financial struggle.
Today in my story, I will tell you, how we Indian fought with Covid 19 by not taking medicines, staying out of the house, wearing one layer cotton mask for the heck of it, and not to forget along with the small daily reunions.
India is a country where only a few metro city people have a clear, logical, and reasonable thought process. The rest of the country is run on a “chalta hai yaar” attitude which means “it’s ok, it will work”. If you do not believe me, I would highly recommend you to come and spend a few days in the town of UP, Bihar, and West Bengal. The same “chalta hai” mindset has let us stay at peace even when Coronavirus was knocking on our doors.
You must be baffled as what I am saying is contrary to the figures and the level of stress showed on the news channels. Your confusion is obvious until and unless you know how we Indians deal with diseases. I am a small-town girl raised in a society where cough and cold never need medicine. The only cure is to stay normal and drink “haldi wala dhoodh” aka turmeric milk and only if the symptoms are unbearable. I clearly remember never have I ever taken any medication for runny nose or cough and still, I do the same.
Our “strong illusion” is “sardi-khasi” will only go after a week no matter how much ever medicines we take. We don’t follow the norms of staying away from our family when suffering from a cold or cough which indirectly builds our families immunity. And the icing on the cake is, in worst cases when the symptoms are not going even after 1–2 weeks, we visit our neighboring doctor.
Let me tell you, one more interesting fact in almost all the cities, towns, and villages of India. Every street in India has its own local area doctors. These local area doctors practice in their respective streets. Nevertheless, the posh street of metros does lack this kind of doctors now. The irony here is that all these doctors are without any professional “MBBS degree”. They prescribe medicines on the basis of their experience as most of them previously worked as a compounder in some or the other clinics. Nevertheless, their experience cures almost all the mild to moderate diseases.
Now, let's relate this mindset to Covid Conquest. In around March-April 2020, 30–40% of the people of my town had cough, cold, fever, along with excruciating body pain. Thanks to the lockdown and the free internet on each and every smartphone that everybody was well aware of the spread of the novel Coronavirus. My town has a population of 1lac, out of which nearly half of them had cough and fever. So, you can roughly estimate half the town was either asymptomatic or symptomatic. With the scenario going on and the symptoms that these people were facing it was very clear that maybe not all but at least half of them were suffering from Covid 19.
My own relative came from London in the second week of March. He got fever, not only this he transferred it to his entire family of 15 members and then they transferred it to the neighborhood. Believe me, when I say none of them means none of them went to a doctor. They ate Crocin after Crocin and almost everybody recovered within maximum of 10 days.
The point to note here is their “negligent mindset” and “strong illusions”. Most of them didn’t go to any reputed doctor thinking that if god forbid they are tested positive they would be sent to an isolation center. For them going to the isolation center was a shame but ironically spreading the virus to their family and friends was a matter of pride. The story does not end here, there is another interesting “illusion” to it. Half the population believed Coronavirus is a rumor. It is yet another political conspiracy by the government to win the elections.
This kind of belief was not prevailing in my town only. You will find a similar mindset and similar thought processes among half the population staying in villages, 3-tier, and 2-tier cities. Nevertheless, the casual approach is what made we Indians treat or I would rather say win over the pandemic. The ethos of the community are so strongly imbibed in all the individuals that scientific reality means nothing to us.
No matter it’s Hindu or Muslim, we all have homogenous religious rituals and eating habits. Our cultural beliefs are knitted in a way that provides us the right moral values, the fear to not do wrong, and most of all the optimal healthy diet. Our day starts with washing our body parts or rather taking a bath before morning prayers. We are not suppose to eat anything before our morning prayers. This way the toxins collected overnight are just washed up instead of going inside. The other beliefs that we carry throughout the week are going to temples and mosques which always keep us spiritually awakened and far from negative energy. Every week, we have a feast day wherein the close relatives gather for an elaborate lunch/dinner spread. This feast is loaded with curries, breads, and all other form of carbohydrate foods. Not to forget, along with these heavy food items goes in the essential healthy spices like turmeric, black pepper, asafetida, coriander, chilies, etc. to balance the hefitness of the curries/breads.
All these community rituals are necessary and a must for every Indian family. They not only aid in keeping our thought process clean but also help to attain a physical, mental, and socio-economical balance. The love and the strong bond with God, family, and relatives are considered the only medicine to cure any disease/disorder.
During the pandemic time, all the poor to rich families focused on praying to God and drinking the Indian Spic mix aka “Kadha”. Kadha is a drink prepared in Indian households by boiling all the Indian spices like cardamom, black pepper, ajwain, bay leaf, jaggery, and ginger. This spice mix known to cure cough, cold, or any kind of viral fever. To recapitulate we all survived by doing these things:
Staying with our family. Most of us left the metro crowd and went to our native places to be with family in hard times.
Eating the right balanced home-cooked food. Absolutely no packed or processed food.
Drinking our Indian Spice Mix aka Kadha.
Performing all the religious rituals to keep our mind at peace.
Not taking medicines for curing cold, cough, and fever symptoms instead of relying on Alternative health medicines.
Medical Science has all the medicines to cure the serious illness but still, the cure lies in the immunity which we build during our life. We Indians have a lifestyle, where we are exposed to a lot of germs/bacteria's/viruses on a regular basis when we go out or when we eat outside or in fact at our home where most of the time our maids are cooking our food who themselves are not very particular about hygiene practices. Our exposure to all these things have made us strong and fit to fight illnesses and infections. If you go today on Indian streets, you will find half the people not wearing a mask, standing close to each other, and not to forget people who are wearing masks have their nose open. Till now, many of us continue to have cough, cold, fever, stomach upset, and fever. Most of us not prefer to go to doctors, we take medicines, drink kadha, and follow a home-cooked diet with no processed food in it. And magically, we all recover within a few days. So here, I leave you with a question are these masks really protecting us against Corona virus?
