Coronavirus and quarantine in literature

Several references to corona-like virus and quarantining are found in literature, in books of Indian medicine, as well as mythology

Since time immemorial, scholars and artists conjured imaginary worlds much before scientists could actualise and invent them. Leonardo da Vinci conceptualised the parachute, the tank and the glider helicopter and drew detailed diagrams of a helicopter some 400 years before it became a reality. Gene Wolfe imagined a world paralysed by endless traffic jams in Strange Travelers. HG Wells predicted a time machine, and Jules Verne imagined submarines and rocket launchers to transport humans to the moon.

More examples can include Ibn-e-Safi, a mystery writer, who imagined a machine process that can be seen as an innovative prototype of the now-popular video calling in his novel The Dance of Flame (1960). In his post-apocalyptic novel Allama Dehshatkank, he imagined a dystopian world beset with a contagious epidemic that spreads and forces people to be quarantined at home.

Many things come to be delineated in literature only by accident. Corona-like viruses and forced confinement all over the world are not part of the world's recorded history, but too many references to such a situation are found in literature, in books of Indian medicine, as well as religious mythology. These references are disconcertingly similar to the present situation of the world.

Interestingly, Haaziq, a book of Unani medicine authored by internationally renowned Hakeem Ajmal Khan (1868-1929), also mentions a corona like a disease, "It is an epidemic similar in symptoms to influenza which kills like the plague", etc. According to the book, the epidemic spreads because of a toxic element in the air that enters the pulmonary system. It starts from colder climes, eventually spreading everywhere. Khan stated that it harms children and older people more than the young. Patients exhibit symptoms of high fever, sometimes accompanied by shivering, ache in the eyes, head and throat, heaviness in the chest, dry cough, loss of appetite, and difficulty in breathing. About its spread, Khan suggested that many will start exhibiting similar symptoms, and patients should be immediately quarantined. Frequent intake of hot water and tea will help. After that, some Unani medicines are prescribed (page 156, Nawal Kishore Edition).

The Hadith is the collection of the tradition and teachings of Prophet Mohammad (Pbh). It is considered the most important book of Islamic literature, second only to the Quran. According to the Hadith, the best precaution is confinement at home in case of the spread of any contagious disease. It sternly instructs people not to mingle with the patients. This advice is considered equally enforceable to animals suffering from epidemic diseases (pg 173, Muslim Shareef).

Another Hadith cited an instance when the Prophet refused to meet and shake hands with a person suffering from such a disease. He also banned general entry into a land where a plague had spread and asked that none should leave from such a place either (pg 260, Sahih-al-Bukhari). People in such places are also advised not to expose themselves. In such situations, namaz in mosques is discouraged, and even the azan, the call for prayers, is slightly amended.

The Greek writer Thucydides disagreed with his predecessors, who thought that epidemics had supernatural origins. He argued that epidemics didn't discriminate between good and evil. He said a safe distance should be maintained from the sick. Mary Shelly, the famous writer of Frankenstein, imagined the complete depopulation of the world in a pandemic in her novel The Last Man. In this novel, few people survived the epidemic, only the immunised and those who abjured social contact.

Deputy Nazeer Ahmad, considered the first novelist of Urdu, wrote Taubat-un-Nusoh (The Repentance of Nusooh) in 1873, emulating The journal of plague written by Daniel Dafoe. In the novel, Ahmad details the fears, perils and mortality of the plague in Delhi and notes that the entire state of Delhi was self-quarantined due to fear. Even the dead were not touched and not cremated/buried with requisite propriety. According to him, distance from the sick was the only cure. The eponymous character of the novel, Nusooh, couldn't be quarantined because his entire family was suffering from the plague and ended up paying a heavy price.

Noted Urdu story writer Rajindar Singh Bedi wrote a story titled Quarantine. The story recounts how people in an epidemic were more afraid of quarantine than the plague. Many hoardings displayed, "Neither mouse nor plague nor quarantine". Bedi wrote of a time when people were dying in such large numbers that petrol was sprinkled on the deceased to cremate them without any rituals. The protagonist of the story, who is a doctor, is so afraid of the plague that he doesn't go to the hospital where a large number of patients had been quarantined but sent

a corpsman Bhago instead. Bhago's family suffers from the plague, and his wife dies. When the epidemic is over, the government gives credit to the protagonist and the services and sacrifices of Bhago are not acknowledged at all. In the story, the depiction of the quarantine centres is similar to the reality of the treatment centres of today. The doctors and attendants are humane as well as careless, patients cry, and more than five hundred patients are quarantined in a small space.

There are hundreds of Urdu couplets about the advantages of social distancing and seclusion. I cite just two from the treasure.

Mirza Ghalib says that solitude is the best time:

Hai aadmi bajaye khud ik mehshar e khayal

Hum anjuman samajhtey hain khalwat hi kyon na ho

(Seclusion is always like an assembly because the human being himself is a fusion of scattered thoughts).

One look at this couplet from Basheer Badr suggests he had imagined the present situation forty years back:

Koi haath bhi na milaye ga jo galey milo gey tapaak sey,

Ye naye mizaj ka shehr hai zara fasley sey mila karo.

(Nobody will like to shake your hand if you keep embracing warmly,

this is a city with a new temperament; keep a safe distance when you meet.)

Psychiatrist Victor Frankl, a Nazi camp survivor, developed the theory of logotherapy. In his book Man's Search for Meaning, he said that man can survive even in the adverse conditions of quarantine or a torture camp with hope and love for family. Frankl cited many of his experiences from the torture camp about people who lost all hope of freedom and died immediately. He told the story of a man who imagined a holy voice reassuring him that he would be freed from the camp on March 30 but died because he lost hope when that did not happen. Frankl says that everybody can survive a quarantine or seclusion, which has the quality to make one stronger. Frankl perhaps omitted to write was that solitude can be endured, but one needs someone even if only to say "solitude is fine".

To end on a positive note, let's remember the Persian poet Abdul Qadir Bedil, who said that when God felt lonely, he created the world. Granted, we can't be as creative as God, but there is still hope.

(Khalid Alvi is a poet, critic and literary historian)