Lock Down and Senior Citizen..Part5

मेरी पिछली पोस्ट पर बहुत से मित्रों का कहना था कि मुझे हिंदी में लिखना चाहिए। मित्रों की भावनाओं का सम्मान करते हुए मैंने निर्णय लिया कि इस श्रृंखला की समापन किस्त को मातृ भाषा मे लिखा जाय। आप सबके आदेश को सिर माथे लगाते हुए इस बार हिंदी में आपके समक्ष प्रस्तुत हूँ।

समाचार पत्रों और थोड़ी बहुत टी वी की खबरों से ये पता चल रहा था कि अधिकतर निजी अस्पतालों ने अपनी सेवाएं बन्द कर दी हैं और सरकारी अस्पताल केवल covid19 के मरीज ही देख रहे हैं। ऐसे में एक भय हमेशा बना रहता था कि अगर कोई आकस्मिक जरूरत आ गयी तो क्या होगा? और ये भय केवल हम बुजुर्गों का ही नही था बल्कि देश की आम जनता का था। इसका जहाँ नकारात्मक परिणाम हो रहा था वहीं इसके सकारात्मक पहलू भी थे। छोटी छोटी तकलीफ में भी जो लोगों को डॉक्टर के पास भागने की आदत थी वो कम हुई। ये बड़े आश्चर्य की बात थी कि जो अस्पताल मरीजों से भरे रहते थे वो खाली हो गए थे। आखिर वो सारे मरीज गए कहाँ। श्मशान घाट वालों का भी कहना था कि शवों की आवक पहले की अपेक्षा 35 प्रतिशत रह गयी है। सबसे बड़ी बात ये थी कि कोरोना का ये भय पूरे विश्व मे लोगों पर तारी था। यूरोप और अमेरिका जैसे देशों ने लोगों के मानस पटल पर इसके प्रभावों का अध्ययन शुरू किया तो आश्चर्य जनक तथ्यों से सामना हुआ। अकेले अमेरिका में 60 प्रतिशत लोग एंग्जायटी डिसऑर्डर के शिकार थे साथ ही डिप्रेशन जैसी अन्य मानसिक बीमारियां भी चारो तरफ दिखाई पड़ रही थीं। हमारे देश मे भी लाखों लाख युवा नौकरियों से निकाल दिए गए थे जिसके असर उनके मानस पर पड़ना स्वाभाविक था। ये वो वक्त था जब दुनिया भर के वैज्ञानिकों ने भी स्वीकार किया कि इस समस्या से निपटने में योग और ध्यान ही सबसे कारगर उपाय है। चूंकि हम लोग नियमित रूप से योग और प्राणायाम कर रहे थे और मैं तो प्रतिदिन आनापान सती ध्यान योग का भी अभ्यास कर रहा था तो उस सीमा तक हम लोग एंग्जायटी की जद में नही आये थे और प्राणायाम ने हमें इतने खराब मौसम में भी सर्दी जुकाम बुखार से दूर रखा जिसके लिए हम दोनों सदा ही सुबह उठते ही परमात्मा का धन्यवाद करना नही भूलते थे। किंतु सब इतने भाग्यशाली नही थे, विशेषकर हमारे मजदूर भाई जो रोजगार की तलाश में अपने घरों से हजारों किलोमीटर दूर थे। जिन फैक्ट्रियों में वो काम कर रहे थे वो बन्द थीं और मालिकों ने वेतन देने से इनकार कर दिया था। मकान मालिक किराया देने या घर खाली करने का दबाव बना रहे थे। राज्य सरकारों ने इस सबसे आंख मूद ली थी ऊपर से कोरोना हो जाने पर गुमनाम मौत ने उनके मन मे इतना खौफ भर दिया कि वे पैदल ही अपने गांवों की ओर निकल पड़े। यहां राजनीति का सबसे गंदा चेहरा भी देखने को मिला कि राज्य सरकारों ने इस पलायन को रोकने की बजाय इसे एक प्रकार से प्रोत्साहित ही किया और लाखों मजदूर गांवों की ओर चल पड़े। 1947 जैसा दृश्य था। हजारों स्वयंसेवी संस्थाओं ने इनके लिए जगह जगह खाने पीने की व्यवस्था की, उनके अपने राज्यों की सरकारें भी आगे आईं कि उन्हें उनके गंतव्य तक पहुंचाया जाए।

इसी प्रकार आवश्यक वस्तुओं का भी धीरे धीरे अभाव सा दिखने लगा था या यूं कहें कि अब स्थिति ये आ गयी थी कि जो भी ब्रांड उपलब्ध था उसी से काम चलाना था। अब आपकी पसंद नापसंद का कोई मायने नही रह गया था। इस बात से ये भी साबित हुआ कि जीवन मे कोई फर्क नही पड़ता कि आप किस साबुन से नहा रहे है और कौन सा शैम्पू लगा रहे हैं और ये सब मन के भ्रम ही थे। पर अगर इसकी तह में जाएं तो सच ये था कि कोरोना के भय से कल कारखाने बन्द हो गए थे तो उत्पादन लगभग ठप पड़ गया था। इसके अनेक दुष्परिणाम तत्काल दिखाई पड़ने लगे। सरकार की सारी गाइड लाइन्स को दरकिनार करते हुए निजी कंपनियों ने अपने कर्मचारियों को या तो निकालना शुरू कर दिया या उनका वेतन आधा कर दिया या कहीं कहीं तो रोक ही दिया। इससे समाज में भीतर ही भीतर एक वर्ग पैदा हो रहा था जो अब इस लॉक डाउन के विरोध में अपनी आवाज दबे ढके उठाने लगा।

सामाजिक दूरी और घर से न निकलने का भी लोगों के मानस पर बहुत बुरा असर पड़ रहा था। भय इतना व्याप्त था कि जिस पड़ोसी के घर दिन में एक बार हमारी बैठकी हो ही जाती थी उनके घर हम लोग अभी तक नही गए हैं। पत्नी का सामान्य दिनों में अपनी दोस्तों के साथ तीन चार घंटे बैठना ही सबसे बड़ा शगल था जो कि इन हालातों में संभव नही रह गया था। इन्ही दिनों वीडियो कॉलिंग हम लोगों का सहारा बनी। बच्चे जब वीडियो पर हाल चाल पूछते थे तो आंखों से आंसू रोकना मुश्किल हो जाता था। ये आंसू खुशी के थे या गम के ये समझ पाना मुश्किल था पर ये मन को हल्का जरूर कर जाते थे।

गिरती अर्थ व्यवस्था, कमतर होते रोजगार, दैनंदिन की कमाई से घर चलाने वालों की कतार पुकार ने सरकार को ये सोचने पर विवश कर दिया कि अब लॉक डाउन को लंबे समय तक नही खींचा जा सकता। हमारे प्रधानमंत्री लगातार परिस्थितियों पर नजर रखे हुए थे और सभी से लगातार सलाह मशविरा कर रहे थे। हम लोग भी अब कुछ छूट की उम्मीद कर रहे थे। अंततः तमाम बंदिशों के साथ अनलॉक 1 शुरू हुआ और ये उम्मीद बंधी कि इस एक अदृश्य से राक्षस, जिसने सारी मानवता को बंधक बना लिया था, से मुक्ति का मार्ग मिलेगा।

इस संस्मरण के लिखे जाने तक जन जीवन पटरी पर आना शुरू हो गया है। यद्यपि अभी वायरस से संक्रमित होने की गति पर अंकुश नही लगा है तथापि अब अधिकतर साधारण संक्रमित लोगों को उनके घर मे ही क्वारंटाइन किया जा रहा है तो सहज रूप से स्वस्थ होने वालों की संख्या में इजाफा हो रहा है और अस्पताल जाने का भय भी कम हुआ है। मैं कह सकता हूँ कि WHO को इस पर पूर्व में ही सोचना चाहिए था। अब तो रूस ने वैक्सीन बनाने का दावा भी कर दिया है और पहली खुराक रूस के राष्ट्रपति की बेटी को देकर शुरआत कर दी है। उम्मीद की जानी चाहिए कि आने वाले दो तीन महीनों में स्थिति काबू में आ जायेगी।

इस प्रकार हम दोनों पति पत्नी ने ईश्वर को समर्पण करते हुए और योग प्राणायाम और आयुर्वेद की अपनी बहुमूल्य धरोहर से अपने शरीरिक और मानसिक स्वास्थ्य को बनाये रहा। सरकार द्वारा जारी दिशा निर्देशों का पालन किया। कभी किसी चीज की कमी को लेकर कभी कोई तकरार नही की और प्रेम के साथ इस कठिन समय को पार किया। अगर तकलीफ हुई तो बहुत कुछ हासिल भी हुआ। पढ़ने और ध्यान के लिए पूरा वक्त मिला जो अभी भी बदस्तूर जारी है। इस दौरान जिन मित्रों, साथियों रिश्तेदारों ने फोन के माध्यम से, या व्यक्तिगत रूप से दवा पहुंचा कर हमारी हौसला अफजाई की उन सब को हम दोनों अपना प्रेमपूर्ण आभार व्यक्त करते हैं और सादर नमन करते हैं।।

सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः सर्वे सन्तु निरामयाः । सर्वे भद्राणि पश्यन्तु मा कश्चिद् दुःखभाग्भवेत् ॥ ………..……………………………..शरद कबीर

Lock Down and Senior Citizen..Part4

I got retired from the services of KGSG Bank, an rural bank, in December 2019. I had various plans which I had been procrastinating for want of time. But when I got retired I only enjoyed the freedom for full two months. Being a banker in India, now-a-days, is no less than a nightmare, atleast if you are posted as branch manager. There is a very funny joke famous in banking community that if you ask, ‘if one women give birth a child in nine months then how much time will it take if there are nine women, the banker will answer, one month!! On the day of my retirement someone asked me that how I was feeling. ‘As soon as clock will ring 5 pm I will be a bird who has been freed from the cage’, was my prompt reply because banking scenario in India is very pathetic. All kind of experiments are going on. On one side government is trying to privatize them and on other side all the government financial plans are being implemented through banks only. Even all the monies released for poor people for their food in this Pandemic was to be distributed by banks only. So when I got retired I just enjoyed the freedom for first two months doing nothing.

My first plan was to improve my photography skill as soon as I have ample time in hand but by the end of March the whole world turned into a cage. Lockdown was imposed in almost every nook and corner of the world. So it became true that ‘man proposes god disposes’ in my case and I was compelled to stay at home to stay safe. But as we know every cloud has a silver lining so I tried to catch that silver lining. Now I had enough time to spend with my better half, rather quality time you may call it. Because just after the joining the bank my time was for bank only and after taking interest in Union activities my house had become a mere motel for me.

In response to my previous post Sunaina (Naina Banarasi) wrote that she was waiting for the love story of two elderly couple. Ha ha ha, but yes in so many ways it was a new phase of our life. In the helter and skelter of life how we reached at this age we could not know. Daughters were married and the son was in the job some 2000 kms away. We were lonely in a sense but we decided to start it afresh instead taking it as the end. We decided to have our morning tea, yoga & pranayan, lunch, evening tea and dinner together though there was no option left. Morning tea, after my walk alone on the roof, was our time when we enjoy morning tea and coffee in our verandah chit chatting over the news from news paper. But most of the time it turned into worries that if we came in contact with this so called deadly virus what will happen. The government machinery will pick us up and put at different location and so on and so forth. Later we found that this was not our thought only but a majority was thinking like this because we were reading about mis management in Covid19 centres. There we realized that why thousand of labours ran away from metro cities. They thought if death is inevitable why not die where they are with their kith and kins. In fact the scenes of hospital which we saw over tv was horrifying. All the staff clad in white PPE kits roaming and dead bodies rapped in black polythene. This kind of information not only staggered us but it was creating depression all over the world. We read few people committed suicide after they were tested corona positive. Almost all the government throughout the world did not take care that no such panic could emerge rather they also pour the oil to lit the fire. In India thousand of people were penalized monetarily as well as sentenced to jail if were found on roads. Crores of rupees were collected as fine from two and four wheel vehicle owners. This all was creating a fear psychosis among the people. In this situation we relied on Yoga and Pranayam to boost up our immunity as well as mental health. Just after tea we continued with our yoga session. To be continued……..

Lock Down and Senior Citizen..Part3

As we have seen that we all have good and evil in ourselves who are in constant fight. Our behaviour is the outcome of this fight, when goodness is in winning state we are good otherwise vice versa happens. But our epics also indicate that there is always a bright side of every gloomy situation. As is said in “The monk who sold his Ferrari” (by Robin Sharma) that “there is no such thing as objective reality or the ‘real world. There are no absolutes. The face of your greatest enemy might be the face of my finest friend. An event that appears to be a tragedy to one might reveal the seeds of unlimited opportunities to other.” This we can see in corona period that masks, sanitizers, various necessary items of life were being sold at unbelievable high price. Mahabharat teaches us the rules of life as well as of society but the greatest contribution of Mahabharat is “Srimad Bhagwad Gita” to human race. Literally Bhagwad Gita means “the Song of God”. It is the part of Mahabharat (from Chapter 23 to 40 of Bhishm Parv) . When war was all set to begin between Kaurav and Pandav the Pandav Prince Arjuna was filled with moral dilemma and despair. He refused to wage the war against his own kith and kin. Then Lord Krishna, who was playing the role of Charioteer of Arjun came forward for his disillusionment. Krishna, who is believed to be incarnation of Lord Vishnu, taught Arjun the Science of Cosmos through Ashtang Yog.

Any way my wife continued to watch the TV till 4.30 or 5 pm, while I used to either read something or doing some photography practice. As soon as I settled down for my studies only the voice coming out from tv was our sole companion. We almost kept silent. This was hard time for my wife as this was time when she used to sit with her friends of colony for usual gossips. But in lockdown such meeting became daydream. What could the best we could do to sit in balcony with our tea and coffee and discuss about children who were far away and were our major concern in this difficult time. Another major topic was the menu for next day breakfast and lunch. I always said whatever you can cook without much pain, cook. How could I bother her for the meals. After having our beverages we used to go to our roof for our evening walk. Both of us waited for this time very eagerly. This was the time when we were able to see the faces of our neighbors as everybody came out on their roofs to feel the world, to feel that they are living in the same world. There we could chat a little bit with them face to face otherwise the cellphone was the only mode of communication. So we tried to be on our roof as long as possible. I used to walk atleast 3 kilometers which I measured on my stop watch.

By the time first lockdown was coming to end we were almost prepare for another lockdown as the pandemic was not under control. But by now few essential commodities were about to finish as we normally keep the stock for one month. This is the story of any one who is dependent on salary. An incident I would like to remember. We were about to face the shortage of coffee and tea. Now it was a big question that how to get it. The only shop in our colony was running out of stock for everything. I decided to call on one of my colleague to cooperate. By this time the administration had allowed to open few shops for a limited period. I requested him to bring one packet of coffee and tea when he return from the bank branch next day. Next day my colleague came at about 5 pm. He blew his horn, I went down and asked him to come and have a cup of tea. He said, Sir we exposed to various people/customers all the day so it is not safe to come and sit with you. He handed over the packets and went. I was just watching him going away. I was thinking that he will go to his home and there his family will not be in danger. My eyes got wet.

Contd……

Lock Down and Senior Citizen..Part2

Like an typical Bhartiya family my wife take bath just after the Tea for her morning prayers. In recent past we have seen tendency to criticize ringing of bell in the temples by the so called liberals. But we believe in the power of musical vibrations, even we believe that the world is expansion of Om, highly powerful sacred sound. We believe that it is the sound of universe. When wife does her puja I take bath and after that we take our breakfast.

After the breakfast it is the time for meditation for me. Why meditation, and what exactly it is? There is abundance of literature on meditation. Various school of meditation are also there. Is the meditation is so difficult to understand or pursue ? To me, as Osho says,”When you are not doing anything the energy moves towards the center, it settles down towards the center. Non – doing is a way of moving in.” So meditation is just being delighted in your presence. It is very simple – a totally relaxed state of consciousness where you are not doing anything. What could be the ideal situation for meditation other than the Lock Down! Lord Shiv has given 112 meditation techniques to the humanity. Lord Buddha gave a very simple technique for the complicated world, the Anapansati dhyan Yog. I also practice Anapansati. It is a method where you simply watch your breath sitting in Sukhasana with spine erected and making the 90 degree angle with earth.

While I settle down for meditation, wife prepare the lunch as simple as possible for two obvious reasons. First, we are in such age group that we can’t afford spicy and rich food and second, only simple food with immunity boosting quality was the need of hour. We used to purchase the vegetables only twice in a week so that least contact is made with any outsider because there you are always in danger to get infected.

After ‘dhyan’ the morning chores comes to an end. Now we settle down to watch TV for some time. In the beginning we used to watch the News Channels to keep us updates of Corona just out of curiosity. But as days passed we felt that continuously watching news of Corona was creating negative energy and a fear psychosis was also emerging. It was by no means a good thing. The studies have found that prolonged negative thinking diminishes your brains ability to think, reason and form memories. These negative tendencies can cause our brain to distort the truth and make it even more difficult to break the negative cycle. So we decided to refrain from news channels. Now we decided to watch the religious serials on other OTT i.e. Hotstar, Prime Video etc. First we started with ‘Mahabharat’.

‘Mahabharat’, is an epic which is an historical narration of war between ‘Kaurav’ and ‘Pandav’. But it will be injustice with the epic to call it simple history as it is testimony of statecraft and social structure of that period. Also it is relevant in present circumstances. In our personal life as well as in society there are Kaurav and Pandav i.e. evil and good forces which are in constant fight. The greatest figure emerged in Mahabharat was Lord Krishna. Lord Krishna is said to be incarnation of Lord Vishnu.

To be continued…………..