Beyond religious, financial and literate barriers

Devipshita Gautam

The New Year celebration was not over yet, the freshness of 2020 was in full bloom and a few carols were yet to be sung. As the whole world stepped into a fresh decade, it was not yet ready to stop the celebration of a new beginning, when suddenly an attack of Covid-19 entered out of the blue like those old invaders in history books. Appeared as our old karma. Knowingly or unknowingly, we humans had sown the seeds of it. The situation seemed as if God had stopped answering our prayers. All justification of whether we deserved it or not, good or bad, fortunate or unfortunate, stopped working for human life.

The whole world shut down in the lockdown. Starting from the national lockdown in China during the last week of January, it gradually started in Italy during mid-February and the US in mid-March. Covid-19 wrapped up the largest populated country in the world. In India, 1.3 billion people have been staying at home. For many, it was a never-ending luxury, entertainment, partying and celebration. But for the majority of Indians, it was deprivation of food and shelter. Initially, during the lockdown, it was not easy for the masses to understand that it was a measure to fight back the pandemic. The feeling was of being stuck in a frozen world. Things had been stopped for them, but gradually they have surrendered against the situations of the pandemic.

The lockdown has taught us how to be grounded. It taught us that it is far beyond the religious, financial and literate barriers. The clean air, water of rivers like Ganga and Yamuna, 50% dropdown in the crime rate has told us that it is we humans who played the prevalent role in the defilement of earth. So, the mother earth has locked humans inside to take things back to beautiful.

I am locked in a frozen haunt,
Where earth moves but not the time,
To enjoy this serenity,
One needs to learn to mime.

Devipshita is the founder of Indian Hotel Academy (IHA)