One trawls through more than usual amounts of online content during the COVID-19 lockdown and discovers ravishing bits of music that delight and enthral. Recently I came across virtual concerts so lovely that they restored much of my depleting optimism given the bleakness of the current scenario. This also made me think about the many changes we are likely to see in the post-COVID era.
This video is not just a beautiful piece of music; this is a concert made necessary because of coronavirus-enforced social distancing and facilitated by technology. People at various remote locations simultaneously play their instruments and create beautiful music led and conducted by Tom Cohen. The piece is entitled Darbuka la Corona (darbuka translates to tom-tom, Google assures me) seamlessly brings together all these musicians. This is beautiful not just because the music is that lovely; but also because it represents the triumph of the human spirit in unprecedentedly dark times.
Another ‘confinement concert’ features one of Western Classical music’s most recognisable compositions: Boléro by Maurice Ravel. So popular is this piece of music that it is said that every 15 minutes, somewhere in the world, a performance begins. The challenge of remotely coordinating a musical undertaking of this size and complexity is plain to see. However, these musicians are clearly enjoying making the music that so delights us.
The coronavirus has successfully made us think along different lines. Concerts such as these are just one example of how we will use technology to innovate; how we will all see largescale behaviour change in times to come.
“Watching a movie and thinking: what are they DOING outside... crowding, touching, eating out, doing STUFF #COVID conditioning” This was my Facebook post from a few days ago. It was a thought that several of my friends identified with. In just a short while we have grown used to silent, empty streets. We have internalised the need to physically distance ourselves from others. Eating out, going to crowded malls, watching a movie in theatres --- already these seem to be a faraway memory. Activities that we took for granted for years such as going to the gym, going to a funfair, travelling by public transport or sitting in an aircraft --- the idea of these now cause an uneasy feeling of alarm.
The fact that so much of the coronavirus spread has been traced back to religious congregations of all denominations all over the world will also give us pause for thought. Faith is all very well, but doesn’t it blind us at times? Doesn’t it make us behave irrationally by believing rather than thinking logically? In the US, religious groups are struggling to reimagine observances such as Passover, Ramadan and Easter within the context of the need to continue physically distancing.
Right now, there are animals wandering on city streets. Rivers are cleaner than they have been in years; skies are clearer and air pollution is lower than our collective recent memories. In one fell swoop, the coronavirus has destroyed the arguments that climate change deniers had been propping up as an excuse to do nothing to mitigate pollution levels the world over. Rich old men in positions of power and authority have long rejected what the scientific community told us about the impact of human activity on environmental degradation and global climate. They resisted making the changes that experts kept saying needed to be made; the coronavirus pandemic has now taken the choice out of their hands.
I think many of us will all try to live more sensible, responsible lives from hereon. In these lockdown days, we have had time to contemplate our lives and identify the many things we can easily do without. To a lesser or larger extent, we have realised the wastefulness we have all be guilty of. If not anything else, there will be lessons that we learn out of the money we saved during these lockdown days. We have avoided so much unnecessary expenditure in the span of these few days that this is bound to make us take a second and third look at our monthly budgets.
Very importantly, most of us have realised our enormous privilege and have tried to do our bit to try and mitigate the misfortunes of others around us.
Maybe in times to come, we will also question that impulse to head out for that spontaneous holiday or an impromptu party? Maybe, maybe not. Now as an atheist I would most certainly welcome a decrease in overt religiosity and ritual. However, I would have to hope that the current need to physically distance ourselves from others doesn’t become a habit. Because what are human beings if not essentially social animals who delight and thrive upon being together – laughing together, eating together, enjoying music together?
Imagine if we could only ever watch a cricket match within our duly sanitised homes. Imagine if we could never again experience the roar of the crowd, the electric atmosphere of the packed stadium as a seething mass of humankind is collectively uplifted by a great shot and dismayed by the fall of a wicket. That would be sad indeed.
I think I speak for most of us when I say, may the COVID-19 crisis end soon; may we all be able to embrace life in all its vibrancy once again --- albeit along with the insight and wisdom that this pandemic has forced down our throats.
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