Nobody ever in this world would have imagined such a situation or crises will occur in our life all just because of a very small microorganism called CORONA VIRUS. The whole world is facing this pandemic restlessly and the outbreak of the corona virus was an unprecedented incident that took the entire world by storm. It has caused a lot of chaos all around the world, not only affected lives of people but also diminished the economy of every country.
There have been many pandemics (Plague, flu, cholera, etc.) over the centuries, which have brought humanity to its knees. But each time we (humanity) have shown our resilience/strength and have gotten back on our feet. Although it might be seen as a success, we mustn’t forget that we’ve lost hundreds of thousands of lives each time and we have always been at mercy to the laws of nature. Even now, even after centuries of progress in every possible field and even with our medical and healthcare system being so advanced and capable, we are, yet again, at mercy of nature, with COVID-19 taking thousands of lives every day and the numbers increasing with each passing day. This goes to show that, each time humanity gets hot-headed and thinks they’ve reached their pinnacle, there is always something in store that will bring us down and that, nature is always all-prevailing.
This pandemic had and will continue to have its repercussions felt many years into the future. There hasn’t been an event that has brought humanity together as one, on such a large scale, in our lifetime and I hope this is the only one.
With present lifestyle we are constantly under so much pressure (stress) to reach a certain goal, a certain finish-line that we don’t appreciate or tend to appreciate, the finer nuances of life as it passes by us, never coming back again. We have been brought up in such a way that we feel guilty, if we don’t spend each waking second of our day being productive; pushing ourselves towards that promised “end-goal”. Many people (most people) don’t even clearly know what that “end-goal” is. This is the reason and will continue to be the reason, for the rising number of healthcare issues that plague today’s youth, especially when it comes to mental health. There have been studies that show that the brain of a typical young adult or teenager shows the same mental footprint of that of a traumatic 65-yr old, a couple of decades ago.
The present situation, lockdown and quarantine as a whole, has personally given me time to self- introspect and take a break from the burn-out culture (although not 100%) that engulfs today’s youth. This quarantine has been a kind of unexpected but welcome change in our lives. It has given us time to take a breath, pause, absorb the things around us and then decide on where or what we want to do.
This has given us time to get to know ourselves better, to discover our little nuances, our inclinations and our likes. More than ever, it has taught us to learn to be happy with whatever we have with us right now or without relying on other people as a source of happiness. This pandemic taught us the importance of many things in our life, such as – there is no wealth or things greater than our health and well beings of our loved ones. Brought many of us to get closer to our family and realize importance of relationships with people or friendships, yes, physical interaction is important, but this quarantine has taught us how to value the time we spend with people and not take things for granted because, we don’t know what the next day has in store for us. We have learnt to show our affection and appreciation to the people we love, irrespective of friends or family without having them necessarily be there in front of us. After being cut out from the outside world for so long, people will tend to appreciate the sounds and other sensory inputs that nature has to offer.
People will not take their body for granted anymore, each and every individual has become more health conscious and more willing to put in the effort to make their body better and frankly speaking, I personally became more health conscious after this entire saga.
The current situation has made me to realize, though we may have many modern technologies; we are still not able to defeat the Corona – Virus. Whatever may be the conspiracy theories emerged about the spread of virus, it shows us that it didn’t discriminate the strong, weak, rich, poor, prince or a common person. Even the world’s strongest nation couldn’t handle situation.
When it comes to technology usage and screen time, it has definitely exponentially increased, but as compared to the initial days of lockdown and now, screen time has definitely reduced. This shows that people have started finding ways to keep themselves occupied and entertained without using technology, without viewing social media as a means of escape and entertainment etc. This is good sign, for the long run, we’ve been discovering activities and things that we like to do that exists outside the realm of screens and gadgets. We’ve been re-discovering hobbies that we didn’t have time to pursue before, or something that we liked that we’d forgotten.
What I observed and happy is that, at last people are realizing how difficult the life of our SOLDERIES (Task forces, Medical Teams, Police Department, etc…) and realizing the importance of FARMERS; who are the back-bone of our country (JAI JAWAN – JAI KISAN the slogan coined by our second Prime Minister – Shri. Lal Bahadur Shastriji).
Everything has come on a break – nature showed the world to live a simple life, no luxury or other material comforts to survive. The mess we have been doing; it may be air/water pollution, irresponsible waste management, cutting the trees or reduction in number of lakes in the name of housing society, illegal mining’s and the list goes on. I believe this (Covid -19) is all a plan of nature to heal back in its own way, because of the worst effect nature has faced by the greedy of humans.
Finally, we had a little break (time) from our busy life to sit down with a clear head and determine what our goals are in the coming future and what must be done in order to achieve them. We have time to chart out a path as compared to blindly rushing into things and hoping for the best. But the most important take-away from this is that life is fleeting and one can never expect what tomorrow brings.
The entire saga (Covid -19) made the world to realize why INDIAN CULTURE AND TRADITION IS GREAT as compared to other countries. Specially, we Indian’s who forgot our culture/traditions [Namste – Instead of Shaking Hands, Yoga/Exercise, Healthy Food (instead of Junk foods – Pizza/Burger/Pasta/Maggi), Getting fresh before stepping inside the home and keep our-self hygiene] set by our ancestors.
I would conclude that everything in the world is for a reason; hence this COVID-19 pandemic (sometimes a villain to someone can be hero to another) is a reason for Mother Earth to Restore It’s Beauty for our next generation.
Dr. Prashant S Humnabad
AP – Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Sir M Visvesvaraya Institute of Technology
Bengaluru, Karnataka
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Quite Readable