We are in quarantine for more than 7 weeks now. The whole world is literally reeling. People all around have found ways to keep themselves involved. They are cultivating art, posting their music on social media platforms, sharing memes- for people like me to free the mind for a bit of time. We are browsing through movies, gorging down web series and all. Calling friends and close ones, playing online games, sharing old memories are our time busters, so to say. Still we are bored. Tensed for the coming days. Uncertain and scared and the all familiar depressions and breakdowns are becoming part of our life. Hearing the news in the initial days was a routine but after a point of time it seemed futile. Online classes, working from home- all have more or less brought themselves in line with this quarantine times. Seeing all these may be I was getting a bit perturbed. At this juncture my elder sister handed me a task of reading a book- an all time CLASSIC as she says. “The Diary of Anne Frank”. Though we had this book for long but I never yearned to read it. But why now?  She just smiled as if she knew a thing may be which I was missing here. I don’t know why I have this issue but after reading, watching or doing thing the same goes on in my mind to a point when it becomes really unsettling. Even at this age I felt small. How can a 13 year old girl be so mature. If I could remember at that age I was still struggling to tie my shoe laces( I learnt that much later though) I have not related myself to anything as close as this in recent times.

The Fuhrer and his gang of Gestapo were wiping out the Jewish from the Earth. I could not help but find a resemblance with the epidemic at present that is wiping out humanity at present albeit not making any religion, caste, color or creed discrepancies. Anne was grounded in a time and space which was totally out of her control as the case is now for all of us. All her teenage piled up anger come out as outbursts on paper as letters which acted as a vent to let all things go. Yet gradually but fast the surroundings drove her to maturity. She started to contemplate her actions even at that small age. The repercussions her actions would have. All seems so familiar with the given times. The writings of her feelings, problems and love by the end give way for the bigger picture at stake- hunger, poverty, rising inflation and all. She does’nt makes it- an innocent victim of a world that has been damaged beyond repair.

Outside we too have a war- not an anti-semitic one but against a microscope or virus which ironically happens to share its name with a beer. We may not have faced even an inch of the pains that the little girl had faced. We are doing our best, though there always remains room for more efforts.

As we prepare for another hardening 19 days we can find solace in the fact that if things do get better we can at least meet and greet our loved ones, hug them and love them again. Smoking away the last few puffs from my last cig I do not know or have no clue as to why am I writing this. May be I have exaggerated a bit in places while making comparisons. May be will regret this post once all of this is over but till then will to keep it on the wall as a sign of the times that we are facing. Hope we all get through this unscathed.