Stay at home? Tell that to the virus, 'cause I ain't listening.

We all know the rules- stay home, save lives. We've heard it being repeated so many times over the past several weeks, ever since the coronavirus entered the country (oh, fateful day!). It's the most famous slogan out there now, and the most important one too. Yet there are several people who callously ignore this warning and go out unnecessarily and frequently.

In fact, recently, after the Maharashtra government passed an order saying that anybody who stepped out of their house had to wear a mask, I saw this man who was walking on the road next to my house, who had a handkerchief tied around his nose and mouth. I mentally appreciated the man for remembering to wear this makeshift mask.

At that moment he raised the end of the handkerchief, spat on the road and replaced the kerchief.

These are the kind of people who not only think they're immune to the virus that's wreaking havoc all around the world, but also couldn’t be bothered to think about all those people whom they might in turn infect if they contract the virus. They're also the kind of people who, if asked to stay home, might ask you to tell the virus that because they sure ain't listening.

While they might have been stepping out of the house to 'stretch their legs' or 'just get a packet of milk from the shop', they don't pause to think about possibly infecting those who are going out to buy rice, flour, oil, all the essential things that they need for their family to subsist on during the lockdown.

There's this video circulating in social media about a nurse who treats coronavirus patients. She has a life outside the hospital, a baby girl and a husband, a life she has to give up as long as patients keep coming in. Her daughter missed her so much that she wouldn't stop crying and eventually her father took her with him to the hospital. It was a deeply moving sight, the nurse on one side of the road and her husband and baby on the other, with the child crying and begging her mother to come back home with them. The nurse couldn't even do anything except say that she would come back soon…the saddest part is, this nurse cannot even guarantee that she will not contract the virus from the patients that she treats every day. Every day that she spends at the hospital treating those patients, she gambles with her life, yet she cannot and does not leave.

This is just one of the several stories of people who are trapped by circumstance and their professions. They are fighting to flatten the curve, to see the end of this pandemic, but as long as the virus keeps spreading, their dream too shall remain unrealised.

I can't speak for the entire nation but to all those who do step out of their house unnecessarily, I just want to say, people are dying out there. All that we need to do is stay at home to make a difference. Are all the lives that you can save by not going out really worth less than a carton of eggs or two packets of milk? Do you really need that stuff, if not buying them means one more step towards defeating the virus?

And come on, this is literally a pandemic we can stop by staying at home and binge-watching Netflix series or binge-reading (I should know, that's what I've been doing for the past month or so.)

We still have a chance. We have a chance to reverse the tide before our country faces the same plight as the United States, the United Kingdom or Italy. This is only the beginning, and with a country as huge as India with such a large population, just thinking of the situation that could arise if the virus keeps spreading is scary. So once again, please, please, stay home- if not for all the people who work to give us proper electricity, water supply, healthcare and protection while we sit at home, then for yourself and your loved ones. One small sacrifice to save billions of lives.