Juhi Chakraborty (HINDUSTAN TIMES; May 8, 2020)

The Coronavirus lockdown has seen everyone’s creative juices flowing and it has made Divya Dutta pen her first poem. Titled Jab sab theek hoga na, the piece beautifully captures the ethos of the current crisis.

Talking about how she invoked the poet in her, Dutta shares, “I was trying to write my next book and I have a deadline. I was very stressed out and couldn’t concentrate. One fine day, I was walking my dog and I thought that the things we are doing right now, like helping each other out, feeding the strays, asking after watchman, etc. will we keep doing them everything is back to normal?”

The 42-year-old says that she penned it in five minutes.

“I wonder if we will be as compassionate as we are right now, after this crisis is over. May be a lot of people will just go about their lives, thanking God that this is over. But I feel a few of us will come out of this as changed. It can be just 10% of the entire population, but even then a lot will be gained I think. So it depends on how sensitive you are to things,” she says.

Dutta says this lockdown has been a learning experience for her in terms of how it made her realise that she was leading a very fast-paced life, which would often steal her away from enjoying life itself.

“Life has slowed down drastically. We all needed the basics coming back to our life jo hum sab bhool gaye hain kahi na kahi. Now, you have time to do think, ponder and reflect, work on relationship and just be. I started watching birds in the evening and it is so therapeutic,” the actor shares.

She also is optimistic that the country will bounce back from this crisis.

“Yeh bada chaanta pada hai sabko. We had somewhere done something really wrong to the environment. Now look, we are locked down in our houses and the birds and animals are out. This is divine justice. Some people, who are sensitive, will learn something and then again there will always be some who will be like chalo kaam pe chalein,” Dutta says.