July 21, 2020
A lot has changed since March..things which were never expected and things we took for granted since a long time. And however much we think it will change, it will not, for some time…at least…and what we have learnt is that we have to be ‘OK’ with certain things, we were not ‘OK’ with before. We have to be OK with wearing masks..OK with sitting at home and not visiting malls…OK with not being close to our relatives physically (who knew such a day would come where you would show your love to your loved ones by staying away from them). We have to be OK with not travelling in flights, trains, buses without a thought, we have to be OK with washing hands and using sanitiser every time we remember, we have to be OK with not eating out. And OK with not going to our places of worship which brought peace to a lot of heavy hearts when in need. The things we have to unlearn and relearn and be OK with it…
We learned a lot about ourselves also these past months and will be learning a lot in the coming months also. We learned that life is unpredictable no matter how solid and concrete plans you make in life…things which we learned a hard way, seeing weddings getting postponed, travel and immigration plans getting cancelled and losing jobs at hand. We learnt that extravagant spending is not required to keep us happy and that marriages as well as funerals can be conducted with the presence of just 25 people. We learned that savings help us in the long run while the car loans will not. We learnt that nature does not distinguish between classes, religion, caste, colour, country and race. All are same in its eyes. We learnt that we are privileged who get to work from home and have money saved to pull us through the coming difficult months. We now know that even billionaires can go bankrupt and the poorest of the poor may be the most generous in giving to those in need. We learnt that we fear for our loved ones more than we fear for ourselves. And that a day will come when we would be yearning for a hug from our mom to which we used to say uff…mom not again. We learnt that we can survive with bare minimum and we learnt to stand in long lines to get essential items.
And in the coming months we are going to learn lessons which will lay a foundation for our future. We will learn that healthcare sector which was ignored till date has to be brought into the forefront. We will learn that our lives were made easy by the people in the lower sections of our society and that they will need the strongest push and pull to get out of this situation. We will learn that to some less privileged, hunger is more important than the thought of dying later due to a disease. We will learn to give preference to our senior citizens when they are outside because they will be risking their lives…be it allowing them to move ahead in supermarket line or the line to an ATM. We will learn that teachers were doing so much for our children and still continue to in spite of being paid less than what they deserve. We will learn to live with pay cuts and rise in prices of commodities. We will learn that money can’t buy everything, when there will be no ventilators available in spite of us bribing people. We will learn not to crib when we wait for our physicians because we now know they take the Hippocrates oath very seriously….while we sit in the comforts of our houses they sweat and get dehydrated by the PPEs they have to work in, to keep us safe and not getting paid their salaries in spite of it. We will learn that having a vehicle to go around is a blessing, when we will compare ourselves with the migrants walking miles with just a chappal and empty stomach..unsure of the future ahead and looking forward to unemployment, hunger and poverty. We will learn to smile with our heart so that it shows in our eyes, because beyond the mask only your eyes communicate the smile. We will learn to respect the freedom we had. We will learn to respect all, no matter which rung of the ladder they are leaning on. We will learn that nature is trying to heal itself and in turn giving us a feedback about how we treated it from so many years….
We should be OK, we have learnt and we will learn….. for the coming days, months or years…no one knows because there is no precedence in this….but we have survived through the years and we will survive somehow….and come out a little wiser than what we were…..hopefully…fingers crossed…