Is India struggling with a Covid Rage epidemic?

Just this morning the India Wide Web was agog with an apartment violence anecdote, a premium resident of Gurgaon abysmally abusing a security guard much like his recent Noida peer. There is actually much evidence to suggest that both the sanest and the insane are grappling with unprecedented anger, an outcome undoubtedly of the pandemic suppression.

This rage, incidentally, is rather colorful and straddles much of our cognitive as well as emotive existence. It is plainly visible in social media, the new age mirror of concocted civility, while its influence is apparent in daily physical living, impromptu violence alarmingly routine. As defensible evidence, FIRs are being filed with prolific consistency, and the mood for punitive measures is very dominant. I was in the ramparts of the Mahua Moitra talk show where she seemingly turned rogue with 'derogatory' observations, and the militant zeal in amplification was genuinely remarkable.

Which is truthfully the far larger point, a recently unforgiving mindset of a historically forgiving demography standing out in disturbing regalia. Folks are routinely bashing their bosses on LinkedIn, perhaps deserved but nonetheless quite surprising, given our cultural obsession with hierarchy.

We are brandishing daggers at restaurants we dislike, discarding olive branches for any fellow with a mildly differing view on smallish matters, denying the benign perspectives of nondescript stand-up comedians, and as a community at large, never sitting down even if mildly tickled. This is clearly not a political pattern, it has become a rabid societal routine as the outburst becomes our signature emotion, superseding the endangered embrace.

Exactly the reason why I sincerely believe that the Covid Rage epidemic has the potential to outlast the mortality caused by the frightening virus. For two years, maybe more, we were forced to live like caged animals, our intuitive spontaneity leashed by unimaginable constraints. Family and friends were separated, holidays became a distant dream, routine work relegated to videographic engagements, and the home relegated to a dismal dungeon, no longer a field of dreams.

As a result, we are reacting quite like caged animals on parole, uncertain of imminent incarceration, in fact, 'over-reacting' is the accurate term. Our rage is thus the lead member of emotional existence and indeed a surrogate justification of our identity, throttled by uncontrollable gags. This is a matter comparable to the demographic attrition which defined the evils of the Corona in its prime and demands urgent multilateral correction, through expert and not amateur intervention.

Therefore I have a fervent plea to policymakers, to consider the post-covid mental health scenario as a national, and not notional, emergency. As a logical outcome to have a genuine mental health policy, which includes all stakeholders in the fray, with actionable parameters for execution. This includes corporates, schools, paramilitary, governance, home citizens, and every other feasible constituency.

Quite like the Great Wars of the 20th century, the longest-lasting prisoner of the covid conflict would be the mental trauma. A relentlessly lingering yet seemingly unfazed pattern that terminally influences our current and future actions. Let's all unite to spread the tale of happiness so that covid encounters a grisly termination.