ABSTRACT
The encircled space at the bottom left corner depicts life before the advent of ‘science’, when we lived in the midst of mountains, trees, and plants. We depended on farming, worshipped gods, and led simple lives. Gradually, as I have portrayed outside the circle on the top, symbols of ‘development’ in the form of technological innovations, such as engineering instruments, used to measure land, started appearing. Land became a commodity to be bought and sold. Above that is the microscope – an unmistakable symbol of ‘science’. We increased our knowledge about land and other resources and began exploiting them. I have depicted ‘developed’ countries such as the United States, Italy, France, and Germany by depicting the share market, train, airplane, tall buildings, rushed pace of life, and so on. We did not anticipate that all this ‘development’ would lead us to a crisis like Covid-19. In the bottom left corner, I have depicted Wuhan city and its wet market, from where coronavirus seems to have emerged, eventually spreading to the entire world. However, the circle on the left that depicts rural life and the life of yore remained protected from the illness to a large extent. On the right, I have shown how the lockdown wreaked havoc for migrant workers, as they had to walk for miles without any means of transport. I have also depicted how fellow humans offered food to the migrants. The biggest irony in all of this is that coronavirus has forced us to adopt the lifestyle we followed in the past, when we lived in less crowded spaces, ate healthy, home-cooked food, and did not need much to survive.
