Before I embark on the rants of how 2020 was, let me take an opportunity to start this write-up with a grateful new year wish. Hence, wishing you all a very Happy, Successful, Joyful, and more so, healthy New Year 2021.
2020 was surely not the year we all dreamt of. It was neither the year that we all thought it would be. I remember, back on 31st December 2019, I saw most of my contacts posting/saying that they would want 2020 to be "their" year. Many others said that this year they want to travel and explore the world. I am sure even you would have seen similar trends amongst your circles too. Every person was talking about explorations of the world. Rare did they know about the misery that is going to befall them, and the time will actually make them explore themselves.
This pandemic showed us all that none of us intended to experience. People who are not social, ended up stuck with their flatmates, for months. People who were longing for their family, ended up checking news regarded opening of flights so that they can fly back to their homes at the earliest. People who thought that their work space was the best, had some shuddering realizations and exposures of senior management. People who thought having credit cards is equal to buying the world, realized that not all times, it will suffice. These are few, and we both know a lot more.
Before March 2020, very few percentage (hardly 10 percent as per research) of the population of the world, knew about mental health. Moreover, lesser than that (hardly 7-8 percent) of the world, had actually experienced it. But, come June and July 2020, every second person in India was talking, spreading awareness, taking care and sensitizing the concept of mental health and well being. We all are aware of the Bollywood fathers who need to be congratulated for this (intended sarcasm).
Did we all not read about nature and environment back in our science and geography classes? Did we all not write in examination papers that "Keep the environment clean", "Do not cut trees", and other similar anecdotes about how to save greenery? And if yes, we did, then why was this pandemic necessary to make us all realize the worth of it? The need and urgency to walk our own talk? I still remember the so called "environmentalists" posting videos on Facebook and IGTV Stories on Instagram about giving people guilt trips of how we all as citizens have wasted the environment and how COVID-19 is making us all repent. A fair and direct question to them, "Where were you all this while?" Where were you when the Great Barrier Reef has been crying for help since three decades? Or when their is so much of gaga over the glaciers melting and bringing in apocalypse? When pandemic gave the chance, everyone jumped in to hold their own flag higher than the others.
On that note, did someone just think about corporates who want to hire top quality professionals from A grade colleges, but, don't want to own up to give them work life balance, because, these professionals are staying away from their families, and hence, in these employing cities, they have nothing else to do, than to just give their entire time to work? (Or should I say overwork?). I think if COVID-19 did not do anything good, still, I rate it at 5 star for the fact of how it left these "super ambitious" and blood sucking corporates at the mercy of their employees. Now employees have to Work from Home and until proven very necessary, none of these corporates can actually force the employees to work from their assigned geographical workspaces. COVID-19 did put a tight slap right on the face of multiple unregistered startups and organizations, who not only were wasting the tax of the payers, rather were also wasting huge amount of human, time and monetary resources of the entire human kind in general. I saw layoffs at whooping percentage of 70 percentage, in one of the organizations, that I knew closely. And to top it all, 5-15 percent salary cut also happened for the employees who were "priviledged" enough to be held back. Another direct and straight question "Did you hire employees or bought slaves for lifetime?"
There are many such questions that last year raised in my mind. These are to the government, to the system, to the society, to the circle, to the people and even to the Almighty in few cases. But over the period I have realized that their are no answers to any. Moreover, all of it just leads to more and many more questions.
If 30 Lakh of the farmers and labourers had to migrate from a city to another, then what was the ruling party at the state and centre doing to stop it or to provide them some sort of consolation? 30 lakhs is not a small number but, the pity state is that still, no one has a record of where and how these people migrated. Another question raises at this point is that "When every citizen has to sync their AADHAR and PAN numbers on government mandated websites, then where is the AADHAR and PAN card registration of these migrants? And if we do have those records, then still why the government is not able to track down these people? Or atleast give a figure to it? Why education system is yet not boiling up for losing such a high number of students that went along with these migrating families?". Another shuddering question arises is, "Are these families alive or not? Did they die in one of those railway accidents where train "mistakingly" ran over the sleeping migrants?"
There are loads of questions left unanswered. No one will own up to them. No one will even try to find the answers to them. But, well, we all need to move forward, look forward and forget what's gone. (Think about those families who actually lost their families into COVID-19 due to some reason or the other, they probably will need huge amount of time to move on, but still, they will, at some point.)
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