Guest column | Embracing life, the virtual way

At times, I wonder if I would have been able to attend such literary fests physically, during the normal days, without Covid and its restrictions. Perhaps not.

Sitting through the online sessions of the decennial edition of the Khushwant Singh Literary Festival, got me thinking that humans have been endowed with the unique qualities of resistance and resilience, which allow us to transform challenges into opportunities.

Covid conditions are easing out, yet people, particularly retired couples like us, are comfortable living in a virtual world than the real. Maybe soon people will revert back to the old ways of connecting with each other in physical gatherings and meetings; movie theatres may start working at full capacity; the number of these online activities may come down, but as long as they are here, we are enjoying them to the hilt. (Getty Images)

The catastrophes that we encounter in life contain in themselves the seeds of new openings, if only we can discover them. Case in point: the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown came as a challenge, calling upon us to do away with our intensely intrinsic urge for human connection, and putting our survival impulse to the test. Being trapped in our homes without any social interaction, a sense of ennui and torpor made us uneasy in the initial days. But soon the cyberspace took the world by storm: work from home, online classes, webinars, virtual interactions, online shopping, and home delivery brought dormant humanity back to life. As the internet kept us hooked to our devices, we became dependent on a profusion of online activities, not just for entertainment but to find something worthwhile to do to broaden our intellectual horizons, thus taking us out of the deep dark pit of vacancy and inadequacy.

The aforesaid literary fest was one of the many I have attended recently. Invitations have been forthcoming in bunches for book launches, meet-the-author sessions, literary discussions, poetry sessions in different languages, webinars on history and culture, including dance and music. Listening to and interacting with renowned authors, historians, and social figures of national and international repute, particularly those from across the border, whom I would have never met otherwise, has come as a boon. All this keeps me busy day-in and day-out, so much so that on a few occasions, I have attended two sessions simultaneously, shuttling between the two.

At times, I wonder if I would have been able to attend such sessions physically, during the normal days, without Covid and its restrictions. Perhaps not.

First of all, being an ordinary person, a part of Hoi Polloi, I would have never got the invitation to rub shoulders with the literary elite that usually forms the audience of these festivals. But here I am, attending all these without the hassle of getting ready, driving down to the venue or flying to another city. Even if I were privileged to get the invitation, I would not have been able to attend them all. Thanks to the prevailing situation, I can attend these events comfortably and with such regularity. My husband, too, has a number of programmes of his choice lined up for himself, and we both have the advantage of being in our respective digital space, without disturbance or interference.

Entertainment has also come right to our living rooms. The closure of movie theatres, and the emergence of a number of OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Max Player, Voot, and many others, have brought about a revolution in the entertainment industry. They have opened up new opportunities for in-home watching of web series and even feature films, thus bringing families together. As millions of people have subscribed to these portals, there is an overabundance of web series, so much so that sometimes the availability of multi-seasoned Indian, British, American, or Turkish dramas poses a problem of the plenty, making it difficult to pick up one.

Here too, we are saved a lot of time and effort. We are spared of the exertion of going to the theatre, booking tickets, planning out lunch and dinner in advance, and then coming home tired, having spent more time in the process than the duration of the event itself.

Covid conditions are easing out, yet people, particularly retired couples like us, are comfortable living in a virtual world than the real. Maybe soon people will revert back to the old ways of connecting with each other in physical gatherings and meetings; movie theatres may start working at full capacity; the number of these online activities may come down, but as long as they are here, we are enjoying them to the hilt.

It may surprise many when I say that my platter is full, courtesy the coronavirus; but life is not all doom and gloom, and we can always find little good in something bad.

njkaur1953@gmail.com

(The author is a Patiala-based retired associate professor of English)