Lessons from the lockdown

The corona pandemic of 2020 will join cataclysms such as killer floods, communal bloodbaths, or a mass migration rising to Partition levels

As the first stirrings of life return to the streets, there is something hesitant, almost furtive, about the slow lifting of the lockdown. Cars are now visible from my window on an empty thoroughfare and — my heart jumped at the sight — even a bus or two. The popular bakery down the lane is open for business but you cannot enter: Like children, noses pressed to the glass questing for forbidden morsels, you point to a preferred loaf of bread — though there isn’t much choice. The chemist has resumed home deliveries but the stationer has pasted a notice