THE NEW NORM

To figure out a new norm, I figured out the old one first. 1984, Bhopal Gas Tragedy, Union Carbide responsible. We made our first many bucks by selling certificates. For a whole year, and the following decade, anyone who wanted to submit to the government that they, or some member of their family, had suffered due to the killer, debilitating gas, came to us. We made a file for them, with certified true copies of their birth certificate, income-certificate from their Panchayat, ration-card and medical certificate, too. We gave death certificates of relatives, real or imagined, for a higher fee, naturally, for they were more difficult to procure (regular printer refused to print because of a superstition). That file would get them a pension for life. Or a one-time grant or some facility or the other from the government. Some even managed to get maal from the company, directly. Smart people. And what did we get? A fee, an income. We did so many people so much good. We also bought our first car. Cars. 1993, the Latur Earthquake. God was kind; we added a floor to our house. Competition had come in, but we were quick. Temporary huts, roofs, beds, gas-cylinders, sale of farmland, licences, paperwork in government offices to apply for subsidies, grants. Our rates were low: two per cent of what anyone got. Fifty rupees extra for the trouble we took to help people out. Competition was negligible. The 2000s have been generous. The Gujarat earthquake. We filmed doctors bandaging wounds, people digging trenches, pitching tents, cooking and transporting food and sold the footage to news channels. We changed with the times. Our rivals were still selling certificates. We’d moved on. Experience matters, see? I didn’t have to worry about my daughter’s dowry. Or my sister’s daughter’s. I donated a hundred and one gilded coconuts to the Siddhi-Vinayak temple. Nothing’s too good for one’s favourite deity, no? 2001, January, the tsunami. We gathered truckloads of clothes, rations, medicines. People were ready to buy cooking oil, petrol, soap, water. Wherever we went, whenever we set up shop, whether in Tamil Nadu or Andhra, it was hard work. Businessmen from all over the country were setting up shop. We had expected to make a tidy profit, but no, the competition kept the prices low. We didn’t make a loss. That’s all I can say. 2006, the Mumbai floods. no luck there. That city has its own network. We did some business and stayed put, which was good, because we do some dhanda annually, nothing spectacular, but regular stuff. Plastic-sheets and gutter-cleaning labour-contracts, mainly. Herbal teas and immunity-boosters were good investments, yes. Natural disasters are a boon, yes. 2013 and 2019, Uttarakhand cloudburst and collapse. We ran there as fast as we could. We’re the experts. We can give you any disaster material anywhere in the country, anytime you want it. Glucose biscuits made locally, packed with wrappers to make them look like the real stuff. When you’re hungry, been out of food for three-four days, tastes the same, whether the biscuits have paraffin or maida. One hundred and ninety-nine percent profit? Arrey, multiply that by ten. You want drinking water? We give. You want paracetamol? We give. You want to call the Army? Ok, we have our limitations, but we try. If you pay, we try. 2020, January. We got a whiff that something was happening, weren’t sure. March, the Pradhan Mantri, bless his chest, announced the Lockdown. Covid-Corona, Virus-Shirus, curfew. Wah. Milk, dal and rice, wheat and sugar, there was money to be made, we thought and the family sat to bounce ideas. It led to nowhere, too many players around. Then, we learnt about the PPEs and masks. When the planet bowed to the whims of a mutant-nucleic-acid, we weren’t prepared, I admit. We learnt overnight, like a million-million others, to do things together that we’d never done before. Online education and WFH is what you think. We’re different. Standing in our balcony at 2000 hours, one particular evening, clapping and banging our thalis with spoons, we realized where the future lay. We raced to make or buy and sell elastic-eared masks. Paper ones, jute ones, synthetic ones, cotton ones. With stripes and zari-work, masculine-looking ones, colourful checks for the style-conscious, bright-motifs for toddlers and old-fashioned ones for old people. Millions of masks at a profit of Rs. 1 per mask comes to… do the math. Disposable gloves, aprons, head-gear. Home-made sanitizers, sanitizer-bottles with/out pumps, sanitizer-bottle-dispensers with foot-operated levers. Chaandi hi chaandi—no, sona hi sona. Life is good, Corona-mata ki jai ho. One of my cousins is negotiating with a dozen hospitals for ventilators and another is having discussions about garbage-removal/disposal contract with a couple of MLAs. Viva. The other day, I walked into a new beauty-parlour at Porvorim. Nothing they can do can make me beautiful, for that I’d need a jadugar, no less, I agree. What impressed me was, they were charging Rs 100 for a safety ‘kit’ which including plastic footwear covers. Now, to tell customers that the present mutant might jump from ground to nostril and endanger all around was novel. I came from there a wiser woman. The new norm requires one to be quick-thinking, a step ahead of the others in the race. It’s not about selling home-made ladoos/chaklis. It’s not about tailoring your own clothes or making family movies and putting them on YouTube/FB/Instagram to bore relatives on the other side of the planet. The new norm is about frightening people or convincing them that they should be frightened—or at least more responsible until the vaccine takes over—and buy chappal-covers in barber-shops so we can enjoy the hospitality of Bank Managers, get a free diary/calendar for 2021. It’s when you compare the new norm with the old that the picture becomes clear: whilst change is the only constant, as things have been, things remain.