Quo Vadis?

Lessons from the lock down This series comes to a close with two pieces of writing that have touched me and are a source of inspiration (Excerpts from the poem) If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;… If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same:….; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss:...!" …Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son! – Rudyard Kipling Different lines in this poem talked to me at different times and this lock down has been a roller coaster of emotions. If you have not read the poem do look it up. I know that the above poem may have inspired you and eve...

Lessons from the lockdown Change – the only constant in life. We know that change happened, happens and will happen. Our response to change determines how the change affects us.  The lockdown has changed: • a lot of things around us • a lot of things about us • a lot of us • us  When change happens we have the option of: • resisting / fighting change • going along with change • ignoring change If we accept the change, we can: • make small incremental changes • make drastic transformational changes Change can be: • adversity • opportunity All the above options have their own consequences and it is unique to each person. We should therefore not judge the response of another on the basis of our own. Ultimately the question that remains with us – Is change a : • choice • reflex We need to remember that only when change is a choice we own the change and the consequences. To master change: ...

Lessons from the lockdown Anger: (def)  a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility. Anger is a cause of misery, both from the sender and the receiver. Anger can be costly for all parties involved; some direct costs, some consequential costs. There is something called righteous anger – a sense of anger that comes from perceived injustice. It is called righteous because this type of anger is “right anger” to the person who feels it. In the lockdown I have been angry because of various reasons but mostly at what I see around. The media helps to add fuel to the fire at times when I see the injustice of it all. Lack of food, work, shelter for many who are ignored, abandoned and when they die reduced to the footnotes of the newspapers, they become just a statistic with the dignity of their names also denied to them. I am angry because there are some who are either callous or reckless when they go walking in groups disregarding the advisories given by th...

Lessons from the lockdown Stay home: the lock down has forced many to stay home and we may have mixed feelings about it. Some love it; some hate it; if you read the papers today some are dying in an attempt to reach home. The story of the goods train running over exhausted migrants trying to go home has now been overlapped by at least three road accidents where vehicles carrying these people have met with fatal accidents, worse some callous motorists have run down migrants going home. Many religions teach that home is the end to the journey of life and many yearn to go home. Yet there are some who are unhappy to be home for various reasons starting from livelihood issues to boredom. Only a person who cannot understand or refuses to understand that staying home is not possible to all will say that he is bored of it. The migrants may not have homes nearby, there are others who are at the forefront of the pandemic who leave their homes daily in fear and isolate themselve...

Lessons from the lockdown: Plan B – meaning an alternative strategy. The lock down has been all about Plan B, from home work to Work from Home. Today with the absence of domestic help most of the work that was outsourced including cooking is being done at home, non- cooks are learning and managing with all the available help online. Home haircuts are becoming common and so are home work outs.  In short we have found out ways to do things differently from how we used to and that throws up a few challenges. The other day as we went shopping we drove around to find shops selling vegetables that were not crowded and found one shop that was selling vegetables that had opened newly. This shop was selling fruit juices and snacks earlier but with the lockdown and the prohibitively high shop rent the shop keeper changed to being a shop keeper. The fact that the shop keeper risked his health to procure vegetables and sell it to make a living made me reflect. Today pay cuts, ...

Lessons from the lockdown: Self- awareness: the dictionary meaning of this term is –“ conscious knowledge of one's own character and feelings”. This lockdown has ensured that people have become a better or worse person than before. People have discovered hidden potential, skills, talents, the goodness in them, the humanity in them, the self-sufficiency in them, the contentment in them. Sadly this lockdown has also brought out the animal, the monster, the low life in some who proved that the idle mind is a devil’s workshop. Work from home has had many spin offs, from spending more time with and for the family despite the work, it also showed that the work at home needs to be given enough priority for the well-being of all. Gender roles are being redefined: wholly, partially or not all depending on where one falls in the range mentioned in the earlier paragraph. Personally the biggest wake-up call for me is the realization that a lot of my time, energy and money ...

Lessons from the lock down: Gratitude: if you  have roof over your head, food on your table, some money in the bank, a job that you can go back to and are of good health, you have no idea how blessed you are. I realized this in a few days after the lockdown when I saw the people around: the unknown, the unspoken for, the unrecognized and the uncared for, the real India, the people who make and build the nation. I was part of the jolly group of people who celebrated the good times at home and then I saw around me so many people for whom home was a distant mirage. Stories emerged about the way the lock down has been handled and the apparent callous planning that seemed to care only for the privileged ones. By privileged it will be the people who will read posts like this or make videos of their "challenges". For the less privileged, life itself is a privilege that many others are grudging them. I am thankful for all the mercies that I have received, which I have...