Trauma In The Age Of The Virus

Disrupting the rhythm of our everyday life, the pandemic inflicts invisible wounds that will take longer to heal than any disease

- Shiv Visvanathan

A trauma is a physic wound that goes beyond the physical to damage the soul. It carries shades of stigma. It is usually confined to the backstage of most disasters and is constructed as an afterthought. The trauma of the coronavirus pandemic faces a similar fate.

As India sees itself as a middle-class society, it defines itself in middle-class terms. The whole idea of the lockdown was seen as a disciplinary exercise, an attempt to redefine life as a timetable. The middle-class lives by timetables. It is a mindset and a way of life. When timetables are frozen, the middle class goes into confinement and its certainties are destroyed. With the lockdown, the upper-middle-class discovers boredom, isolation, anxiety, leisure and, of course, work from home. Yet the middle-class mentality displayed a complete indifference to the marginal, the migrant, the nomad—and the trauma induced by the coronavirus begins with these very categories.