Setting the Scene- City and the Pandemic

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SETTING THE SCENE

Life amid the outbreak of the virus; uncertainty brewing, risk lurking on the edge of every surface. The outside, a beast, waiting to feast on you. Outside no longer looks like a safe social transitional zone, but a danger zone. You only seem moderately safe indoors, nursed in the lap of your own homes. The step outside seems like a newly formed wilderness. The idea of the world exceptionally well connected appears appalling. Praises sung to the technology at our disposal and travelling seems like an adventure (not many people are such). “Better safe than sorry”, a proverb used now more than ever. A lingering uncertainty.

There is something paradoxical about living in the city now. A wave of disruption observed in the longstanding daily routines. Everything feels different; the city seems to have changed. Not long ago, public transport was a convenience to reach places faster, economically. Outside grocery shops, at 6-foot intervals, neat yellow markers on concrete sidewalks render masked shoppers into queues. People are crowding in open areas like parks and beaches, leaving most indoor meeting places closed. Public parks, a 19th-century campaign, offer relief to urban dwellers otherwise trapped in their own homes. Our bodies in space have been suddenly reorganized by the disturbing spread of the novel coronavirus, momentarily reducing our spheres of mobility. We stay put, but unexpectedly we are staying in different places. There is an array of improvised urban activities and ad hoc solutions. And still, things have been the same too—a lingering uncertainty.