The last four lines from Kipling's If sum up the human predicament quite well.

Sixty seconds. A minute. How do you fill this minute with value? What is valuable to you now? Will it be valuable to you later, or to those who will carry on your flame?

The countdown timer is above our heads, recording 60 seconds with every minute. It is a very hard thing, to keep the unforgiving minute filled.

If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

There's luck and effort both involved here. If you pick a tough question from the lot, you have a slight disadvantage, but then you should think of how far you've come in this journey of life. You've had your fair share of professional experience on the topic at hand. You're human and you've seen your fair share of human behaviour.

Some people say stay positive. For me, I need to stay negative too. I spend a bit of time visualising how things can go wrong, the myriad ways in which they could go bad. I don't feel so bad about it after I do it for a little bit of time. Most of these scenarios would never happen and if by chance one did, I am ok to deal with it. The ancient samurai used to meditate on their deaths every day. That made them resolute in their lives for that day. I reckon it was Gandhi who exhorted to learn like you will live forever and to live like there's no tomorrow.

We all have one thing in common on the earth. We all have just 24 hours in a day. During preparation, judiciously allot time for focused activities and keep plowing ahead in the time alloted for the mundane topics. There will be distractions. Keep moving ahead. Remember why you are doing this. Prepare. Keep preparing and revising.

When the actual event comes, steel yourself and become mercury. Randomness determines the question that you get for the exam. Your mindset determines how you deal with that question, be it an easy one or a tough one. It's important to listen and be empathetic with your interviewers. They are human too. Hungry, happy, angry, sleepy, anything. Mould and adapt. Don't be too aggressive, don't be too passive. Be patient. Don't be condescending. Listen and proceed. You have the groundwork done. This is doable, all it takes is effort and determination.

“The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.” – Rocky Balboa (fictional character)

I have always been a sucker for the underdog in movies and in sports. There is always a special kind of elation when the underdog tenaciously holds on, and manages to claw back into life, or success, or something on those lines. It hits a raw human chord somewhere within. That story can be watched again and again. Be it Rocky getting pummeled or Tom Cruise baiting Jack Nicholson into admitting that he issued the code red.

Recently, I read a couple of books (non-fiction) – Grit, and Mindset. Both were stating common sense wisdom. Both gravitate towards what Rocky the fictional character immortalized in the movies. You need to keep battling, you get better a tiny bit, one day at a time, one hour at a time, one moment at a time. Setbacks happen and what do you do? You step back and look at the bigger picture that is driving you to do what you do. Absorb it, and move on forward. Keep moving. Keep pushing. For those who are the living, our days are numbered.

There seem to be two key things. One is to keep moving. Two is to know why you want to move.

The spiking numbers just indicate that the testing coverage has increased. The good part is the most of the cases in TN are reported to be asymptomatic and the death count here is very low (it is unlikely that the death count is massively fudged as it would have caused a controversy by now). Shops are open and vehicles are moving now. It is a good thing.

International borders were more or less open till the end of March, and markets in Chennai were functioning as usual during the lockdown. Common sense indicates that the virus has already spread wide and far BEFORE any lockdowns were imposed. The tests which started in full swing recently are just validating the spread.

As citizens, we need to ensure that we continue washing hands, wearing masks and sanitizing goods. But being terrified of something which is already at your doorstep doesn't help. There's no need for fear. Let's deal with this.

I am taking a few minutes to reflect on the experiences from Chennai in the context of a lockdown. The last time I left Chennai was on Feb-28 to Trivandrum. When I landed there, there were people in masks and temperature guns screening people on the basis of their temperatures and their passports. The weekend passed by fairly peacefully and the coronavirus was still not a concern yet in other places.

I returned to Chennai on Mar-2 on AI-968, a flight which came from Sharjah to Trivandrum, and then to Chennai. We disembarked at the International Terminal and there were no checks at all for the coronavirus. All seemed well.

I heard from colleagues at my previous organization that their project mates had flown in from various hotspot countries in March, and had successfully reported to work. The firm requested them to go on self isolation for two weeks, just in case.

The last case I know directly is that of another colleague who flew in from Guwahati to Chennai, a few days before the Janta Curfew. She had observed that there was not much checking and exiting the airport was a breeze.

Time for a wikipedia excerpt - “Chennai International Airport (IATA: MAA, ICAO: VOMM) is an international airport serving the city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, and its metropolitan area. It is located in Tirusulam, 21 km (13 mi) from the city centre. The airport handled over 22.5 million passengers in the fiscal year 2018–19, with over 570 aircraft movements and 30,000 passengers per day. Chennai International Airport is the third busiest in international traffic and cargo capacity in the country behind New Delhi and Mumbai.[4][5] It is the fourth busiest airport in country's overall passenger traffic behind New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.”

We know now that the COVID-19 patients may or may not be symptomatic. The asymptomatic patients, I would assume, would be less effective spreaders than a comparable symptomatic patient. They would have gone through all the temperature checks with flying colors.

Coming to the symptomatic patients, the airport would have welcomed 1000s into the city in 2020, till the last week of March. Not everyone stays in the city. Most would travel overland to their native villages/cities after arrival.

Let's just say for argument's sake, all these patients have been flying in to Chennai with or without knowing that they are carrying a bug, freely for 3 months. They in turn would have traveled all over and would have spread the virus far and wide as well. Now, the strange thing is that people should have been dropping like flies by now, but the death counts are low.

The death counts can be low for 2 reasons. 1 – they are actually low, corona or non-corona included. 2 – the numbers are being misreported. The misreporting is difficult to be caught but a large death spike should have been caught by social media at least.

What I am not able to piece together are 2 contradictory statements that I have been leading up to -

1 – There has been ample opportunity and time for the virus to spread in the state. 2 – The death counts are relatively low.

I do not take into account the COVID-19 positive counts in this article as the testing is limited and could be just the tip of an iceberg.

Given all this, I am starting to wonder if a lockdown is even necessary in this city?

(DISCLAIMER – I am not a medical professional or a data scientist. These are speculations.)

H and G used to hang out on weekends. Their routine had come to a halt when Lockdown-01 was announced. H's car had clocked exactly 50,000 km when he reached back home after dropping G at her flat, that night.

Quite soon, both were busy working from home. As business dwindled down, many companies regrettably had to let go of a few people at first and then a few more, and then a few more. H and G were still employed and working as best as they could. They had things to do and loans to pay.

Running a business with less people also translated into additional responsibilities to those who were still on. No one really wanted to say no to new responsibilities, lest they also get caught in a spreadsheet filter. In the mean time, organizations started recognizing that the productivity of their staff who were working from home, was pretty good with the right monitoring and incentives.

H and G still kept in touch with an occasional phone call over the weekend. The disease eventually dwindled down, and businesses finally started picking up pace. H called up G one weekend and asked her if she would like to meet up, like the old days. It had been more than a year since they met in person.

They went out for a short drive in the deserted East Coast Road. The city and the landscape had all changed. New memories. H dropped G back at her flat and drove back home. As he turned off the ignition, he noticed with some amusement that the odometer reading was at 50,050 km.

(Disclaimer – this is fiction, exploring the what-ifs, post pandemic. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is coincidental!)

It was a strange day for both the ruling party and the opposition. The Luttada Council election results had left everyone open-mouthed when LocalGovt-Cicero, an AI candidate, was announced as the winner by a formidable margin.

All this had started off with a controversial judgement by the Court of Justice that a machine can be a legal person. Soon after, a leading IT employee trade union brought this to the attention of Cicero-AI Industries. The next election scheduled at that time was for a by-poll in an obscure ward called Luttada in South India.

The newspaper cartoonists had a field day when LocalGovt-Cicero filed its nomination as a candidate. The AI had no campaign, no home visits or electioneering prima facie. It was looked upon as a publicity stunt or a mockery of democracy.

When the AI was sworn in as the new Councillor of Luttada, it was a turning point for mankind, and machinekind.

(Disclaimer – this is fiction, exploring the what-ifs, post pandemic. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is coincidental!)

A shadow slowly passed over the village and cut past the rolling fields. The majestic bird vanished over the mountain range as gleeful children pointed at it and tried to chase it from down below.

Wildlife had a made a good comeback after the pandemic related shutdowns of 2020. Some of the major economies now mandated yearly furloughs for all industries to let people live and to let nature thrive.

The children shrieked in joy as the condor decided to come back for another pass. Grey Fox smiled.

(Disclaimer – this is fiction, exploring the what-ifs, post pandemic. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is coincidental!)

Sundays were prayer days at the Grey Fox Liberation Army HQ. Acolyte-Snake Level 13 – Rengoku, entered the stage with great purpose as Grey Fox, and whipped up her multi-planet audience into a frenzy. Liberate Grey Fox, Liberate Grey Fox. Down with the evil AI, down with the evil AI.

2 decades ago the world had been stricken with a devilish fever. An avatar/persona called Grey Fox rose up in the internet forums around this time. The Grey Fox forums came up with predictions on when normalcy would return. The predictions turned out to be eerily true again and again.

In a time when the world lost faith in everything, Grey Fox gave it hope. Soon a worldwide digital cult was born.

As the world found itself back on its feet, the Grey Fox forums had mutated into a new world religion. No one knew who the original Grey Fox was. Their central narrative was that the Cicero-AI conglomerate was an evil entity which had entrapped the original Grey Fox before he could tell the truth to the world.

The original Grey Fox cackled as he saw Rengoku's antics streaming on his old laptop. What the hell had happened to the world! After the sermon, he walked out to a nearby stream to catch fish. Sundays were fishing days for him.

(Disclaimer – this is fiction, exploring the what-ifs, post pandemic. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is coincidental!)

The wife was gently snoring next to him. He was still in City 2 / Valles Marineris. He silently got up and walked over to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Couple of decades had passed since he was chased down the burning fields, during the lockdown summer. Many from his village had perished from the sickness and the famine that year. The nightmares. He was due for his next therapy session with FNH. He gulped down the water.

He grabbed a cold beer and went out to the plexidome terrace to watch the night sky. Phobos was up there. He couldn't spot the Earth. He sat down in the wicker chair and closed his eyes. So much had changed. His village. His country. His planet. He fell asleep again.

(Disclaimer – this is fiction, exploring the what-ifs, post pandemic. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is coincidental!)