Although it seems that the storm of Covid 19 has vanished leaving countless dead in its wake yet we turn immediately panicky, the moment, any media house flashes a piece of news as its headline about a new upcoming wave of Covid 19. A wave over wave, Covid 19 has played havoc with every aspect of human life. As We all are in a way still facing the COVID-19 pandemic and there is a COVID-19 infodemic as well. With just one click of a button, we are able to get the information about the menace and a glut of books have also been written throwing light on the different dynamics of this deadly demon.
The book “From Epidemic to Pandemic” has been written by an eminent Indian author P.V.Laxmiprasad which can be classified as one among the books from ‘Covid Literature’. It must not be a fallacy to state that in the times to come term ‘Covid Literature’ will gain wider currency and can emerge as an independent genre of literature. Though at the present moment It may sound just an example of the literary device of ‘Hyperbole’ to which the reader are likely to take with a pinch of salt.
Aptly speaking, the book at hand belongs to the catagory of Memoirs which remarkably deals with author’s own readings and observations pertaining to the diabolical disease of Covid 19 . As every citizen has experienced, Covid-19 which ripped the world apart in the years 2020 and 2021 and 2022 in the most devastating calculations that human civilization has ever faced. It threatened the very existence of mankind in terms of human loss, financial squeeze and psychological grip of fear, anxiety and frustration triggered by a series of lockdowns and emergence of vaccination drives across the globe. The book is the most vivid recollection of that nightmarish experiences which most of us have gone through with a cold shiver down our spines.
The author of the book seems to be inexplicably sensitive as he takes an extra pain in presenting the deadly dance of Covid 19. He is not just confined to India when it comes to the destruction wreaked by Covid. The ambit of the author is quite vast and all encompassing. How countries like Italy, Spain and Africa were under this inferno raging from China reveals the universals sensibilities of the book and its creator.
Sectors like education, banking, and medicine have been severely affected by Covid-19. It put every citizen in closed quarters, rather a collective imprisonment of entire human race. The scale and magnitude of Covid-19 has been beyond calculations. The author brilliantly recollects those memories of Covid-19 in a simple yet elegant narration by first hand experiences in scientific, political and medical spheres. In this well-knitted memoir, Laxmiprasad presents the sufferings, anxieties and frustrations of people from his brilliant study of the global disaster. Masking, sanitization and social distancing become imposed habits on people. Travel restrictions put the people to difficulties.
This memoir is divided into five sections. The first section deals with the introduction, second section about the corona pandemic, origins and beyond the borders, third section about the effects on USA and the fourth section about how India successfully faced the outbreak, the fifth one is done with the conclusion.
Laxmiprasad’s Memoir is truly a commendable contribution for posterity. The history of Covid-19 is recorded through this Memoir in a brilliant cover-up. His patient record of all that he had seen, observed and presented through the Memoir is really a testimony of his scholarship. One must preserve the book because it is useful for people of next generation. Breaking all the boundaries, the book is a must read for the people of all countries, creeds and communities as Covid 19 has not partial with anyone.