RIFLE RANGE BOY: #Unpaused

Unpaused (Anthology of 5 episodes, Hindi; 2020)
Unpaused: Naya Safar (5 episodes; 2021)

As the numbers of Omicron variant cases continue to rise, allegedly after a large congregation of unvaccinated pilgrims made it all the way to the Holy Land, now is an opportune time to reminisce the good old days when a virus from Wuhan labs jumped ship and affected humans. It is mind-boggling to fathom how much this pandemic had jolted the core of our existence.

It goes without saying that the pandemic has affected everyone in so many ways. Economically, it affected all, predominantly those on the lower rung of the food chain. Interestingly, the ten of the richest globally has doubled their wealth at the end of the second wave.

Inconspicuously, Covid infection started as a concern only for the affluent and frequent flyers as they picked the bug after globetrotting. The poor were not so concerned then. Soon, the tables turned. Living in a restricted living space and close proximity between family members made the poor more vulnerable and even outcasts when society started combating the disease.

What is often forgotten in the equation is the psychological component of this whole calamity. In years to come, the full extent of the post-traumatic stress of being cooped indoors, studying online for two years, non-attendance of familial functions and spending hours gazing at a blue screen will come to the fore.

These two anthology types of miniseries explore many of the stresses people endured in the past two waves of the pandemic. Many of the stories are so surreal and plucks the strings of the viewers' hearts. We stop complaining about our shoes when we see someone with no legs.

In the first season of Unpaused, the episode that piqued my interest was the one called 'Glitch'. In a futuristic universe, Covid has mutated so many times. The world is divided into two types of people - the 'hypos', short for hypochondriacs who simply live an isolated life with a morbid phobia of coming in contact with humans and the 'warriors', who are scientists and frontliners who fight hard to annihilate the virus. It is no more Covid-19; it is Covid-30 in the year 2030. Years of isolation have drained people of interactive social skills, and they have to depend on computer programmes to hook people up. A glitch in the systems meets two people' virtually' in a chat room. The problem is that one is a hypo and the other a warrior. The warrior in real life is a mute scientist. After an initial stormy hook-up, love transcended all differences. The hypo learns sign language and overcomes his germophobia tendencies.

In the second season, two of its episodes were, I thought they were very well made. In 'War Room', a quiet school teacher was assigned to help out at a hotline centre to arrange ICU beds for Covid patients. She carries the burden of the death of her teenage son on her sleeve. He had apparently committed suicide. Legal proceedings were ongoing as she tried to sue his college principal for negligence as the school did not arrange for medical assistance in time to save him. Despite the overhanging sorrow over her head, the teacher hoped to serve society to pay her dues. Fate plays its twisted humour when she gets into a position to deny a bed for the said principal when his son called in requesting an ICU bed. The rest of the story is about she deals with this moral dilemma.

'Vaikunth' (Heaven) is another exciting episode with a compelling storyline. A crematorium worker has his hands full as the number of Covid deaths increases during the second wave. He is a single parent, and his father is admitted for Covid. He also has a young son whom he is trying desperately to educate. He thinks he is doing excellent service to mankind by diligently handling the extra bodies to cremate. Unfortunately, his landlord and his neighbours believe otherwise. They are not comfortable with his close link to Covid, attending to Covid death and his father being Covid+. Nobody is willing to care for his son temporarily; hence, both stay on the crematorium premises. Meanwhile, there is no avenue available to find out whatever happened to his father. He is a 'frontliner', braving himself against the unseen enemy, but nobody actually gives him a second look.

There are more things to appreciate than the story itself in these two and other episodes. The subtle inclusion of motifs (like the fire in Vaikunth - fire to cremate at the end of life, fire to light the stove for sustenance, and fire to light a cigarette to enjoy life) and the excellent cinematography. The episode ends with a poetic message about how the ashes from the burnt bodies are used to fertilise the rice fields to germinate new seeds, completing the circle of life from ashes to ashes.

Hope is the thing with feathers/ That perches in the soul…." Emily Dickinson