COVID-19, A Teacher We Won’t Forget

Let’s walk down memory lane, back to the days when the world wasn’t as dystopian as it looks today. The world looked something like this – crowded trains, hugs that felt right, offices that wouldn’t approve a day’s leave because ‘work suffers’, weddings and sangeets, and what not. A world where walking was not a criminal offence, where the people did not eye you suspiciously if you touched your own face.

And just like that, a virus that’s a mere 120nm big changed the world, one touch at a time. And while we may think that the coronavirus is a monster readying to consume us and our existence, it basically has changed the way the world works. It has been a hard-hitting reminder of what humans have done to the world, how we have ruined everything that came in our path, including our own lives and our mind.

This was an act of reclamation of nature; unfortunately, it came at the cost of too many lives. But with every tragedy that has struck mankind, like an unruly substitute teacher nobody asked for, COVID-19 too has left us with lessons. In the wake of the destruction the COVID-19 leaves behind, some lessons are being thrown at us carelessly, if only we start to listen.

Here’s what COVID-19 has taught us, and here’s hoping we don’t forget.

The Beauty of Self-Reliance

If we could all plant our own organic plants at home, then why did we continue consuming pesticide-laden vegetables? Or at least herbs? If we could clean our own floors, then why did we ever cut salaries of household helps for not showing up one day? As humans, we are proud, eccentric beings who can never tolerate the fact that we aren’t in control. And yet, every now and then nature throws something at you that testifies this very fact. You aren’t in control and you never were. Then what would this existence mean? Just surviving? The beauty of our existence always lies in the small things that make us humans. The power of being self-reliant and self-sufficient. We started taking more than what we needed.

Over the years, your house felt like a hotel you’d come in to sleep, work and leave. You forgot the nuances of your own home, you so carefully created for yourself.

When this pandemic struck us, the first luxury most of us got cut off from was our household help. We went back to the basics, our survival skills sharpening up once again. We began to be self-sufficient — washing, cooking, cleaning ourselves, our homes and our surroundings. The Millenials got their hands around cooking – a basic life skill, a luxury no more. We got humbler as we began to get in touch with our roots as we re-learned self-care in its most basic and raw form.

COVID taught us to restart the romance with our lives. We began cooking again and shared pictures in WhatsApp groups. Every day someone at home wore the chef’s hat to recreate someone else’s favourite dish. As we walked the path of self-reliance, we became more objective of our surroundings, less of a robot who forgot how the plumbing system of his own home worked like.

The fear of COVID stopped us from going to a doctor for menial discomforts. That’s not saying we ignored health, but rather we stuck to home remedies. As a whole, we worked towards improving immunity using herbs and potions that have been passed down through generations. These lost tricks have found their way back into our lives, thanks to COVID.

Hygiene has become a priority for all of us. Not only at home, but in public places too. We do not touch things unnecessarily, littering has gone down and so has careless spitting and coughing in public places.

The Rich and the Poor

With this kind of self-reliance, the first thing that hit us all was gratitude towards everyone who helped make our lives convenient and manageable. From the driver to household help, from the watchman to milkman. They are the true heroes, and it’s a tragedy that it took something as gruesome as COVID to figure it out.

The virus brought everyone on a level-playing ground. It hit everyone alike — from prominent Government officials and celebrities to a common man living across the street. Everyone humbled by the virus, schooled by the virus as a reminder that you aren’t special, even with all your money, power and riches. It’s in times like these when you understand that who you are is a sum total of your body plus your mind. Nothing more, nothing less.

Nature Reclaiming what it lost

Ever been on a trek? Recall that moment when you were standing in front of a waterfall or before a huge mountain. Nature quietly and humbly minimalizes you. At that moment, you are staring at the beauty of nature, with a pride feeling that you conquered. But did you? Nature is like that shy student in the class who never talks, never answers. But every time their results are out, the child has outshone everyone else. Nature in so many ways is like that, it doesn’t go around screaming and crying blood for all the torture humans have inflicted. Because nature knows her power, she doesn’t need to sit on a throne to prove it.

There are so many examples of how nature reclaimed everything that was lost and abused by mankind. A huge number of Flamingoes flocked the Mumbai lakes, 25% higher than the previous years. The water canals in Venice became clearer. The mountain ranges of the Himalayas were visible from Punjab after years of fog and pollution. Wuhan, Seoul, Mumbai and Delhi — which were among the most polluted cities of the world — witnessed drastic decrease in pollution levels. We all experienced clearer blue skies that we loved snapping from our terraces, we could hear the chirping of birds thanks to reduced honking. This was the world we witnessed in our childhoods and it is endearing to experience it again.

It took us years, decades to make it this bad. Persistently and consistently ruining the environment. And all it took was 3 months to start unwinding the damage. The fact that everything starts returning to normal when humans aren’t abusing nature is exactly why this classifies as Climate Abuse. It’s high time we treat this as a wake-up call, to protect what we have. The only change that needs to begin here is to stop taking what’s not ours. We need to grow, but sustainably. We are the smartest species on the planet, isn’t it high time we start acting like it?

 

Tapping Back into ‘Basic Humanity’

This is true for all organizations, units, community and management. That means how you treat your household helps holds as much accountability as to how your organization treats you. The world will remember, we all will remember organizations that went on to forego humanity to run businesses. If your employees have been with you through the ups and downs of businesses, the organizations have been supporting their employees through these tough times. While we understand that companies themselves are facing the brunt of this economic breakdown, humanity can never take a back seat. Protecting your employees comes first always.

There are a number of organizations that have created innovative strategies to help employees. For instance, promoting work from home is a great step, but organizations have gone a step forward to ensure their employees have the right seating arrangement at home. This is to ensure that their back and neck aren’t affected by long hours of odd seating positions.

The Sikhs have been feeding endlessly to those who need it, be it cyclone-affected areas, or the underprivileged who needed basic food. This has been an eye-opening experience that has brought us closer to our community. We are all falling back to support our community, our doctors, our policemen, our teachers, and more. Everyone is trying in their own small way to donate, to help, to assist to make this pandemic easier on everyone.

Don’t encroach into other species

Humans have been encroaching endlessly. For the sake of industrialization and capitalistic gains, humans are constantly turning protected areas into industrial hotspots. But COVID has brought these activities to a standstill. This is why, across the globe, animals have been coming out in the open and re-entering areas that we encroached.

For years, we have been living on their land, and our presence was so heavy that we forgot it wasn’t ours to take. But now we realize that the minute we locked ourselves home, everyone came out. So many examples of animal species that have come out in the open, re-entering areas, exploring the streets across the world with no abandon. It makes you think about how we are paying for the roles we reversed.

We have encroached upon the world slowly but consistently. There were over 72,000 forest fires in Brazil (2019), almost an 84% increase compared to the previous year. The reasons were illegal land grabbers trying to destroy trees, agricultural burn-offs, etc. Human intervention has caused major climatic changes causing incidents like forest fires, glaciers melting due to global warming, and more. We have continued to encroach and damage, but it is now time to stop and reflect.

Schools Have Gone Online

With schools going online, this gives an opportunity for more people to have unhindered access to education. Of course, the condition remains that access to computer devices must be made, but when that happens, online education will make it accessible for more people. Many people who were either working or had no time for education due to prior commitments like family obligations can now catch up using these online classes. Because you can have the option of viewing these courses as per your own time.

This gives everyone equal right and access to education. Because the restrictions of fixed time and space is not there, people can have better access to education. We should now strive towards providing devices and internet to those who need it the most. This might just be the future of education. The fees structure is also expected to come down provided classrooms and utilities may not be used.

Online Businesses are thriving

It was high time that the brick and mortar-type businesses shifted to the newer online model of marketing. COVID has forced every businessman to shift some part of their business online so that they can have better reach. In many ways, this also turns out to be a more economical marketing method. While rent for shops can cost anywhere between 20K and 1 lakh, the cost of an online e-commerce platform is much less. Plus it caters not just to local markets but international markets as well.

Online business leaves an untapped potential for businesses to explore this side of marketing. Newer technologies are adding on to this experience. For example, with the new virtual reality/augmented reality, women can try on lipstick shades using just the camera feature. People can try clothes by just taking a picture and trying on it. This holds hope for the future of this technology to be used in a multitude of ways.

The question remains, will we choose to learn and implement these lessons that an unsuspected tyranny taught us? Or will we continue to abuse and grow unsustainably to a point of no-return? It may be a little too late for salvaging the extent of the damage done, but we need to believe it’s better late than never. The world lives on hope, let’s all use this as a step towards sustainability, in our lives, in our minds, and our environment.