I know it’s April Fool’s Day and I know you’d rather be scrolling down topical listicles of the day but can we take a moment to address the fact that 2020, so far, has felt like an extended prank, anyway? Every year, on 1 April, I (figuratively) shut my eyes and ears for the fear of being pranked. In my defence, there’s already enough fake news freely floating on the internet, and nobody deserves any more of that “Is it real? Or is it not?” anxiety.
But ever since 2020 began, April Fool’s hasn’t even been on my mind because honestly - every day feels like a joke. Every day I wake up to something new and bizarre that 2019 me (which was just three months ago, mind you) would NOT have imagined.
Although when I say ‘joke’ - I want to make it clear that it’s still a mixed bag. We might be in the middle of a global crisis but the absolute bizarreness of 2020 goes well beyond that.
To give you an example, just a couple of days ago, I opened my Twitter to the wildest news possible in the whole of human history.
The Karnataka government has launched a ‘Quarantine Watch Mobile App’ and is asking every person, who has been placed under “home quarantine”, to send the government selfies every one hour through the day.
Firstly - what the hell? Secondly, this could be a Black Mirror episode. In fact, this needs to be a Black Mirror episode (Netflix, you listening?).
On that note, here’s another occurrence that sounds like a joke: Kerala is ready to help out people who are experiencing alcohol withdrawal symptoms by making an exception for them.
Get this - people with actual medical prescriptions can now purchase liquor from the Excise Department. Oh, what a time to be alive, amirite?
Obviously, the moral and ethical arguments around this are endless but we’ll let that be for now.
My point here is simple:
2020 is whack and it’s going down in history for more reasons than one.
Let’s just go ahead and address the elephant in the room, shall we? Currently, a third of the world’s population is in a state of lockdown. Of course, India, in the midst of its 21-day nationwide lockdown, comprises a huge chunk of this figure. Did anyone, in their right mind, ever imagine we’d find ourselves in the middle of a legit pandemic? That we’d actually wake up to the news of people (excuse my language, it’s only for hyperbolic purposes) dropping dead and realise, that the only thing we could do to save them is - STAY AT HOME.
In all fairness, COVID-19 is unfortunate, but it’s done wonders for my social media. We’ve all collectively stopped feeling FOMO.. it’s almost unbelievable. When I scroll through my Instagram and watch videos of celebrities painstakingly doing dishes, I actually have to pinch myself because it feels like the universe is playing some kind of a cosmic trick on me.
For the first time in forever, social media is NOT making me miserable?? Unreal.
In other truly unimaginable things that happened this year, let’s talk about the one thing that was on all our minds for the longest time (until COVID-19 took over of course):
The Glorious MEGXIT.
The world’s favourite (ex?) royal couple Harry and Meghan actually decided to just..quit? They walked out on literal wealth and basically told the Queen that they were done living their lives on her terms. Is there anything more Bollywood than that? I don’t think so.
Meanwhile, the Queen..
But the cruellest of the jokes was when 2020 almost handed us our dream of a Friends reunion and then took it away in the blink of an eye! Earlier, the cast of Friends was all set to come together for an HBO Max special. However, thanks to the ‘novel’ coronavirus, those plans have been put on hold.
Usually, I’m not such a mopey ‘Friends’ person but having to stay away from my *actual* friends has elicited unexpected emotions in me.
On that note, this April Fool’s Day, remind yourself that everything terrible that could possibly happen has, in fact, already happened. Our life, as we presently know it, is a big joke and someone somewhere is probably laughing at it. But at least, we’re all in this together, right?
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