HAVE WE
LEARNT ANYTHING AT ALL?
We are all
still living in the uncertainty of the pandemic. The waves are lashing on to
the shores, one after the other, bringing with them untold horror, disease,
death and endless tragedies. Every family has at least one sad tale to tell,
one big scare and a punch in the face that have thrown the economic wheels of
the family into disarray, puncturing the routine with holes that will take
years to close.
The last
fifteen months have kept all of us away from our normal lives and routine. The
new normal concept, unacceptable at the beginning, has now got firmly rooted in
our day, night and heart. Social gatherings, get-togethers, parties,
engagements and weddings, road-side meets, coffee dates and general loitering
have become a thing of the past. As the pandemic settled down in our vicinity,
life began taking weird turns and twists. The inability of medical science,
virologists and the statisticians working on algorithms to understand what was happening
gave the pandemic a good head start and the world reeled under it.
All that we knew was each person, big or small, male or female, adult or child, was a pariah. Anybody and everybody could bring you the killer disease or be killed himself. Anybody, even you, could change your body forever or end the only life you have. The power of the virus was to each one, to destroy or get destroyed which isolated each one into his or her own bubble. We lost trust over our own hands as much as we feared the hands of our loved ones. Hand-shakes, hugs and physical expressions became expressions of fear and we reeled in horror if someone even attempted to.
Social distancing came home to roost and our homes
became isolated dens as each one took shelter in his own world, staying
physically away from the other. The interactions shifted to mobile phones, zoom
apps and other social media. As the disease raged on, as our mind and thoughts
got trapped in the fear of death and disease, our enthusiasm waned, gloominess
took over and we collectively retreated in our shells, far away from the people
we loved, depended on, laughed and cried with, didn’t care about or even hated.
I remember a
radio channel had started a campaign imploring us to make that phone call to
the one whom we had broken up with or hurt or had negativity about. It was to
make one realize the importance of forgiving and moving on in these uncertain
times. I wonder how many of us had the courage to pick that phone and make that
call!
.As days passed, the pandemic took a brutal turn. It was like being alive for that moment and that moment alone! The truth and inevitability of our mortality was never starker than this. Nobody could predict the future as the present became dangerously volatile.
Faced with this ultimate truth, I wonder then, did we pause and reflect on all the happy and sad moments and the people who made it. Did we look at the broken relationships and the broken hearts lying on the way where we were now. Did we remember forgotten bonds, lost friendships and tattered strings of attachments as we struggled to find sanity in the insane pandemic.
Did we not
think of repairing what lay broken in these highly unpredictable time. Did we
not want to empty our hearts of all the negativity we had collected over the
years. Pushed to a corner, did we not think of this opportunity life had
presented to us to rise above pettiness that characterizes human nature.
Here was the
opportunity to undo what had inadvertently happened or even deliberately, here
was the time to heal, here was the time to forgive, forget or ask for
forgivance, the time to unburden our heart. Here was the time to rise above our
clay feet, to evolve and make peace with ourselves and those who had threatened
or actually derailed our peace. The unpredictability of tomorrow would make our
today that much stronger and allow us find the medicine to relieve us of that
nagging pain, that scratch on the heart or that hatred that had hurt us more
than the person to whom it was directed.
In spite of
the precarious situation we were in, as infallible humans, I think we did not
overcome this huge challenge to our heart. We did not summon the guts needed to
forgive someone who had hurt us and we did not move on. Our hearts continued to
be filled with the weight all the negativity we had been carrying for so many
years.
Even as we
faced the unseen dangerous enemy, the courage to grow out of pettiness never
came to us. The strength to rise above ourselves and expand our heart to be
large enough to tame our ego was never summoned. The fear was there but the
threat of dying by the disease seemed empty to all. It was for someone else, in
some other place, and we would be spared.
I wonder
then, what has the pandemic really taught us. It has brought home the truths
about austerity, materialism- a failed concept, work from anywhere but your
office, health is wealth, money matters don’t matter that much, vacations and
luxuries can wait, life in a bubble and my small circle of loved ones! But
it didn’t really teach us to grow above ourselves spiritually and
philosophically into that realm where we can find peace and true happiness by
lightening our hearts and conquering our egos.
We continue
to remain humans and not evolved humans, even in the face of annihilation by
disease.
Pandemic has
much to teach, but have we learnt anything at all?
Find out your own answers, change if not yet changed, make that call, heal that scratch on the heart and hold on to that elusive peace of mind.
Dr. Reina Khadilkar
