What Next

 What is the next step

A lot of us would have celebrated a quiet end of 2020 with the hope that 2021 will bring back a fraction of normalcy, or at least what we thought was normal before the pandemic

However as we sit on the second wave today, the reality looks grim, looks scary and if I look at India, it is as if the country is on fire. I wanted to use a more hopeful phrase here, but the images that I have been seeing the past couple of weeks and the news that I am hearing, leaves me with no option and shatters my heart.

As we struggle to keep our selves alive and our loved ones alive, we may want it or not, it is leaving us with lessons which one could never imbibe otherwise

A country whose undercurrent has been differences and division, is now united – individuals from every class, caste and religion are together in their fight – fight to be able to breathe. In these absolutely surreal times when we are struggling for ‘oxygen’, if ever a hypothetical ‘godman’ declares that demolishing all places of worship (temples/ mosques/ churches etc) would free the country of it’s misery, I see no doubt in my mind that the entire nation would stand united on this.

The carnage brought about by the virus sees no class, creed and kind. And since this fire has reached almost all our homes, we would all come out of it with a very important lesson – if ever there is a ‘God’ he/she/it does not see or impose differences too.

In any case, the numbers of infected are so huge, that the services provided are just not enough. Nonetheless, bad times have always proved that humanity does surface.

Where we once lived in a global community where our family and friends were just a drive away or a flight away, in times of need or celebration, one could always be with family no matter what their global location.

The pandemic has changed that completely. These are times where the ones physically close to us (in the same city and now probably in the same locality!) are the ones who are going to be with us – to share our grief or to share the few happy moments, which we might have amidst all this chaos.

Once all this is behind us, unfortunately with all the lives it has taken with it, it will leave the rest of us with the ability to know where our actual priorities should lie.

 We might be more compassionate towards people who have it lesser than us and we would relate to the miseries which are not ours.

We might probably value a simpler life with the joys of actually being happy (and not the happiness which money can buy) with people who make us happy.

We might probably value our environment and Mother Earth and everything in it more, because we would have seen up close what it means when hell breaks lose.

Nandini Mithun