The essential worker is, in the ordinary imagination, the sour-faced journalist, writing, editing or producing reams of paper, or, as is the case these days, combing through copies on a myriad digital platforms. Other members of this tribe — the tribe of men and women who, by law, are mandated to provide services deemed essential — can include surly policemen, exhausted doctors and healthworkers, stiff-lipped bureaucrats, heroic firemen among others. They cannot quite be blamed for their sullenness. An All Work and No Play existence may suit the Calvinist ethic but those fond of less austere principles are unlikely to be joyous risking lives during a pandemic. But then this has not been an ordinary year; it is the Year of the Bug, with almost the entire world grappling with the coronavirus pandemic. These grim, extraordinary times have resulted in out-of-the-ordinary interventions. New Zealand, thus, has pressed the Easter Bunny as well as the Tooth Fairy into essential services. The prime minister has reminded children that both the bunny — usually tasked with bearing baskets laden with candies, colourful eggs and toys on Easter — and the fairy — she compensates handsomely for the lost tooth in children — would be occupied with additional responsibilities.
Indeed, additional chores seem to be in vogue. Parents have morphed into teachers, helping their wards with lessons while striving to keep their bored brood engaged. Working women, as always, are staring at a mini-mountain of extra chores: the house has to be cleaned, mouths have to be fed — all this while doing the boss’s bidding as homes turn into offices. To be fair, some men are multitasking too. For once, it is the cops. They started off by wielding the lathi, literally and metaphorically, against defenceless citizens in a bid to enforce the lockdown. But some men in uniform have won over hearts since. In Calcutta, policemen crooned popular melodies to raise awareness about the lockdown’s dos and don’ts. Just in case all that crooning falls on deaf ears, the police here can borrow the ‘corona helmet’ — a piece of innovation — that their peer in Chennai wore for the same purpose.
It is true that Covid-19 is reshaping the world; but the wily human, armed with evolutionary wisdom, is fighting back, trying to adapt to the new, challenging reality by unleashing the spirit of innovation. There is a lesson in this that must be recorded for posterity. The Homo sapien has survived — thrived — by turning adversity into opportunity. It is this ability to change spots, chameleon-like, that has enabled society to survive viruses, within and without. A wise prime minister adding to the rank and file of essential service personnel with fictive creatures; a woman who is a parent-teacher-employee rolled into one; a policeman who is also a rockstar — each of these instances is an example of individual ingenuity at work, beaver-like, to ensure the survival of the species.
