It’s a watershed moment for all of us. The prism through which life is viewed would never be same again. History will have a new connotation in “Before Corona” instead of BC (Before Christ) and “After Destruction” in A.D . “End of world by 202x” forwards will no more be ignored.
“Work from Home” will be considered as viable sustainable alternative with shrunk office spaces as new way of life. Kejriwal’s odd-even formula with vehicles will find global recognition. Indian males will finally be a graduate in house-hold chores and learn to be better team player to their spouses to manage home. Social-distancing will be practiced as prescribed tool for well-being of physical and mental health. Quarantine and Pandemic would make way in corporate dictionary : Every time target it not met, pandemic will be thrown at us to describe the crisis and the company CEO will tell to their one downs : “Let’s get quarantined till we have a strategy in place” each time they need to chalk down their five year plans.
This is also a landmark moment for China. For long their products have been mocked for low quality and poor longevity – Not any more, the virus has totally made up for their lost reputation globally. Plus, we have a bonus in “Zoom” to stay connected. It is totally another matter that thousands of humans have lost their lives in a parallel world.
The good news is that we as a nation are quite different when it comes to dealing with adversity.
“Hope and Prayer” is our primary weapon to fight to any situation. Add to that a spice of spectacle and we are sorted. This pandemic is being treated no differently. We celebrated this global tragedy with energy of sound (utensils) and power of light (Diyas) in order to scare away the virus. It’s not that we do not acknowledge science or medicine however personal touch to everything in life is so our thing.
We wear patriotism on our sleeves and always ready for action at the single clarion call of our democratic leader. Never mind we crib about standing during national anthem and joining government jobs. It is then to the credit of our leader who spells out the vision clearly every time and articulate the actionable, timeline to perform the rituals.
The result of course was a resounding success with the nation performing the task with grandeur. Some of them even overachieved the target by bursting crackers. Pseudo liberals despise him but in a parallel world, he would have won Oscars in marketing for his genius strategy to create and combat crisis at same time. On a serious note, these are rare occasion when our highly fragmented society stand in unison. The folk who slept without food and the one who uploaded one food picture last night with #instafood, both lit a candle with a little prayer in heart.
A small prayer and loads of gratitude for all our unsung heroes: doctors, health workers, all government officials, NGOs, volunteers and all other essential services who is ensuring that our lives run smoothly at this difficult hour. Unfortunately, we live in a world where real heroes are ignored and PR build heroes are celebrated. Shakespeare had once stated “Sweet are the uses of adversity” : these PR agencies managing celebrities have adopted this whole-heartedly.
The direct outcome is the stars working overtime in social media to contribute meaningfully to keep society intact with their live chat and work out videos. This has trickle down effect to the larger realms of society. The lockdown time has created a propensity for people to come and showcase their talent. Dalgona coffee to self-done haircut, every picture has found its way on Instagram. Tik-tok videos are testimonial that we are all ready to be the stars of a parallel universe. We are truly paying tribute to Tagore famous song “Amra shobai raja amader ei rajar rajotte” (we are all king in this kingdom).
Lest we forget, the kingdom belongs to Mother Nature whom we have ignored for long. By this one master-stroke, it has pushed back human kind back by many strides who were in an unprecedented race to claim their stake in this world. Now that we have seen blue skies full of stars and made sense of what really is important for us, we will hopefully continue the sustainable model of living a balanced healthy life, do things what we actually love, make time for people we love and laugh a little more. Most importantly take care of the nature around us and it will love us right back 🙂
