Love, Empathy and Kindness in the Time of Coronavirus

“It was inevitable” begins Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic Love in the Times of Cholera. And if he was writing the book today, it’s not just the cholera that would get changed, he’d probably get a little more preachy and add empathy and kindness to the title, much to his publisher’s dismay. The title may lose its ring, but given where we are today, does Love, Empathy & Kindness in the Time of Coronavirus, really look so bad?

For most of our generation, this is the first time we are dealing with anything as unpredictable as this. While we joke about doomsday scenarios, share work from home tips and countless memes on washing hands on social media, the reality of the privilege that allows us, especially in India, to panic and preach, needs to be converted into something bigger and greater than all of us. A pandemic is, after all, bigger and greater than all of us.

The Individual, the Community and the Virus

Privilege works at the individual level. If you are reading this, like me, you can probably speak English, have access to the Internet and all the information on it. You probably have a choice, a choice to decide whether to work from home or not, to take public transport or not, to order food and groceries online or not. Accessibility and choice are a privilege.

A majority of the larger community, unfortunately, lives without this privilege and choice. The virus, for the most part, doesn’t discriminate. But given where we are living, there is a high probability that socio-economic factors and age will end up tilting the balance.

Consider this. If the situation escalates in the coming days, there will be a massive strain on the limited resources we have. Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar rightly said that a large number of people will depend on a small number of individuals once the storm hits.  While we can’t predict how long the storm will last, we still have to prepare for what lies ahead, and at the community level, what would get us through more than anything else would be kindness, empathy and solidarity.

Do What You Can, Don’t Hate Those Who Can’t

There is a new term that has come from Canada. It’s called “Caremongering”. While Canadians are known to be kind to a fault, this play on rumour mongering is actually a great concept to adopt. Start caring about others. Simple enough.  Starting at the individual level:

• If you can, stay at home.
• If you can help out the elderly and the sick in your neighbourhood, do so, with caution.
• If you can help out your house help, give them the choice to stay at home, without taking away their salary, do.
• If you know a lot about all the precautions to take or steps to take if you feel ill, share that knowledge with someone who may not know.
• Work actively to quell rumours.
• If you can donate to NGOs, organisations, hospitals working to battle the pandemic, do.
• If you can volunteer without putting yourself at risk, do.
• Do not, at any cost, hoard. You may be able to afford to stock up essentials for months, there are many who depend on their day-to-day ability to buy rice, atta, dal, veggies etc.

If you are able to do any or all of some of the things listed above, that is great, but do not hate those who can’t. We are only in March of the year, and we have already dealt with a lot of hate. The last thing we need is privilege-driven hate for anybody. Coming together as a community will depend on how we choose to act as individuals. That too is a choice.

The Inevitability of Kindness

“What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves”, said Albert Camus in his novel The Plague. And it stands true even today.

Great suffering often opens our eyes to the responsibilities that we have towards others. How we as a society act in the coming few days, through this collective suffering, will define the social fabric of our society for the next couple of generations, at least. Are we a society that is only built on individualism? Or are we a society that is willing to face every adversity as a cohesive, kind community? There are no societies that are built on individualism. Every successful individual has been a recipient of kindness from someone at every stage. Kindness goes a long way, especially if taken forward.

And the beautiful thing about kindness is that it can overwhelm evil and negativity. So as we traverse through unpredictable times, remember the inevitability of kindness is almost, always, good.