A couple of days before the Covid-19 lockdown was announced last March, Imcha Imchen, a Naga singer-songwriter based in Mumbai, was heading home after a day at the studio. “Corona, Corona” shouted a group of boys from a distance. Imchen, 23 and accustomed to what he calls the “stupidity” of people “who live in big cities”, ignored them, his head held high. The next morning, however, the jeers began again — this time from a group of kids on the road to work. It did not take Imchen long to book a one-way flight to Bengaluru, where his family lived.