A Dose of Hope

 

These days the human society is divided into two, or let’s say three groups. Forget the times when the society used to distinguish people based on race, colour, caste, language, nationality, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender and multitudes of factors that make us human. These diverse traits of ours exist even today but they seem now to exist only in the background. Why? In pandemic times like these, when human survival itself is a pre-requisite for all of these factors to exist, there is a powerful force than these which will ensure that humans survive to call themselves most intelligent of God’s creations. This powerful force or potion of hope is the Covid vaccine which is safeguarding the world against the extant pandemic.

When I was reading the Meluha series by Amish Tripathi, I was fascinated by the concept of magical Somras drink of immortality. In today’s times, the Covid vaccine which is circulating across the nations of the world as a result of a year’s perseverance, thorough research and trials, is nothing less than the Somras. The scientists, doctors and even the nurses who administer these doses to common people like us are like the Maharishis of modern times. Thanks to their efforts, today almost each one of us is either fully or partially vaccinated.

I remember how 2021 started as a year of hope when Covid vaccines were launched amid plummeting cases and a bit of optimism. Taking baby steps, it was first launched for health workers and senior citizens, steadily propagating to other age groups as well. India also exported vaccines to countries that needed them. Initially there was a lukewarm response to vaccines as Covid cases were on the decline at the start of the year and people almost deemed that the pandemic was gone for good. We were like that hare in the hare and tortoise story, celebrating the victory over pandemic prematurely. Masks and safety precautions became blurred visions. However, we got a major blow when the second wave turned its ugly head in April 2021, infecting and taking toll on many lives. Thus, the panic situation arose and as a result, we faced scarcity of vaccine. Life which had regained of specks of normalcy was pushed back to a standstill.

Surviving is a race in a preponderantly huge India and we experienced that in our former normal lives as well, more metaphorically though. CoWin portal, which was created to book vaccine slots, gave up on people too, crashing while also crashing people’s hopes to get a slot. People found themselves caught in the loop of OTPs and captcha, while losing the slots in the blink of an eye. Thus, demand surged and supply fell short. CoWin’s failure to show a slot during tense times used to be another day of disappointment spent in waiting. If luck worked in your favour, you were grateful enough to find a slot for yourself or for your family member, again reminding me of local trains where you could manage to find a seat despite the heavy crowd.

This dark cloud too had a silver lining. It is not possible for the government or government hospitals alone to try and cover every single individual, given our population. Hence, corporates too extended a hand of co-operation to the government. Corporates started administering vaccines to its employees and their families and also bore the vaccine costs by having a tie-up with several private hospitals. I was fortunate enough to get my first shot from the organization I work for, which was a perfect example of efficient crowd management, maintaining discipline and following rules of social distancing. With more and more people getting vaccinated now, we have learned to battle Covid with cases now slowly receding. Vaccinations are like our armours which will eventually make this deadly virus surrender in defeat.

Hats off to the spirit of our hospitals and health workers who make vaccines available to us within the vicinity of our homes, we read about crores of jabs given in our country on a single day, which is truly praiseworthy. India is at par with several other developed nations in providing vaccines to its citizens. Comparing today’s nearly bearable situation with the panic situation that we faced in the months of April and May, we are in a better place with people finding not much of a trouble now to book a slot. I was too, taken by surprise when CoWin let me book a slot near my home in a span of minute or so for my second dose. It felt like living in a make-believe world!

Today having a certificate of being fully vaccinated feels like an achievement because we waited for the vaccines with hopeful eyes since last year. There was struggle and competition involved at various levels – right from the common public to national and global levels. This need for vaccine showed the human side of competitive countries and economies. It did not matter whether you were rich or poor. The vaccine continues to reach the richest of the rich to the poorest of the poor. With government hospitals providing vaccines free of cost, we as taxpayers can feel ensured that some part of our money is surely being spent on a good cause ensuring healthy citizens.

Being fully vaccinated gives us a satisfaction that we are protected against the virus. Having said that, we should not let our guard down as the pandemic still continues to hover above us like a hungry predator. With an attempt to direct life back to normalcy, we see trains, malls, restaurants opening their doors to fully vaccinated people, thus fueling the mobility and giving a boost to spending economy. Some companies are also offering attractive discounts to their fully vaccinated customers. Shops are seen open for longer hours too, giving us a ray of hope that economy will revive again, benefiting even the smallest of small businesses.  Social media too, plays a role in spreading the need and awareness about vaccinations. Through them, several hospitals and municipal corporations inform citizens of available vaccine doses. Thus, this long human chain or a circle is helping fellow humans to overcome this challenge. 2021 is surely a year of hope, amid the setback of second wave that hit us really hard. The world and nationwide vaccination efforts are not only making us physically but also mentally strong. With a united and strong mental spirit of vaccinated people all over the world, we will continue to battle this pandemic till each of its wave and variant retracts and leaves the world. It is up to us though whether we want to be Covid-cautious by following the norms of social distancing and wearing masks or Covid-idiots by flouting all the norms. Our present actions foretell the eradication of this malice.

A year of Home-cum-Office

 

It’s another Monday. Start of another week. Start the day by checking mails while still in bed or while having tea or coffee and plan the day ahead. Start your laptop by 9 am and then proceed to take a shower and then breakfast. Then starts the busy day sitting in a comfortable place of your home, which sometimes does not end at 6 pm. When it does, the evening ahead looks like a well-deserved time to relax, sans the tiring commute back to home. This is how life has been in the past one year since the pandemic and therefore, Work from Home started.

I remember the day before my work from home had started. We planned how we were going to manage and co-ordinate work going forward and how things were going to be communicated. While packing things that day and making sure that my desk was spic and span, I felt that I would not be gone for long, not realizing that the situation was going to aggravate further. The seriousness had not seeped in my mind even while going home by in a jampacked train, where only few women in my compartment had covered their faces with masks. ‘Such hypochondriacs!’ I felt back then. After getting down the train that day, daily struggle that it was to be able to get down at my station after wading through the wild crowd of the train, I felt that work from home would be a nice break from these daily commute battles. But I had not anticipated such a long break of one year.

Among so many new surprises that we got last year, work from home was one of them. It seemed like a foreign concept for many organisations. Thankfully, the pandemic also changed the definition of work from home for many who thought that work from home was equivalent to a holiday and therefore discouraged it. Thus, the pandemic caused a shift in mindset, though we would have loved that to see that happen under normal circumstances. I think the biggest victory of working from home is an improvement in productivity. Especially in cities like Mumbai where the daily commute drains a person of his or her energy, that saved time and energy levels could be well invested in completing the tasks at hand. I remember a year back when Work from Home was seen as something exciting and novel. People saw the extra time worth investing in their hobbies. Thus, we saw a surge in social media posts of Dalgona coffee, Mandala art and lots of cakes made in pressure cookers. With gyms shut, people transformed their homes not only to offices but also to gyms. As a proof of that, we saw numerous workout posts of not only celebrities but also of our fellow colleagues who paid serious attention to physical and mental well-being. I too seized this opportunity to gorge upon many new shows, exercise at home and read a lot of books. I remember that there was an influx of many new OTT series that time, probably targeting the relatively free class of working people and students.

Meetings too got a different face and we see the funny angle of it through various memes on social media. Team meetings on Zoom, Microsoft Teams gained an impetus like never before. While some enthusiastic people like to leave their cameras on during meetings, wanting to have a feel of face-to-face meetings, majority choose to be behind the camera and be silent spectators or listeners and speak when necessary. Conversations which began with typical small talk topics like “How was your weekend?” or “How is the weather?” now begin with “Can you hear me?”, “I’m not able to hear you” or “I can’t see your screen” etc. thus consuming the time for small talk. Dressing up for virtual meetings was another topic of humorous discussions where there were memes and videos about people wearing formal shirts or tops over pyjamas. ‘Face value’ is thus important for some meetings!

While work from home ensures and proves that we give our best from any corner of the world, it is also seen to have blurred the lines between personal and professional life, especially for those who mistake work from home as work for indefinite number of hours because come on, you are sitting at home and don’t have a train to catch. So might as well sit and put some extra hours to finish that mountain of work as if there is no tomorrow. Such way of thinking disrupts the work life balance, which almost compensates for the commute stress that you want to avoid.  However, it is necessary to lay these boundaries yourself and switch your mind off post work hours. A sense of discipline needs to be instilled in our own selves to finish work on time and catch the train which drops us to the station of enjoying personal life. This mental commute from home office to home is very important to devote time for your loved ones and most importantly to yourself. When we were in office, we used to take tea breaks or go on walks after lunch as a means to spend time with our colleagues and share our experiences of the day. Now that has stopped and we are working remotely, chats on platforms like Skype or other IMs don’t seem like real conversations and we instead focus solely on work, sitting in our chairs for long hours. Breaks at regular intervals or even a power nap has a lot to contribute towards better productivity. I also read articles about how office romances are suffering and have declined because of work from home scenario, which I found funny and made me think how a workplace can have myriad motivational factors for various people.

For me and countless others, work from home which was earlier new normal is now normal, like any other day with that same longing as before for weekends and checking for weekends clubbed with public holidays. Initially I remember how so many of us hesitated to utilise our leave because we were working from home. Soon after realizing that work from home, after exploring and exhausting its novelty, is like a normal work day, people considered leave as not only a reason of getaway to exotic locations but also a reason to de-stress, switch off and relax. The time spent away from laptop also seems like a vacation.

In few articles that I read, employees in some developed countries too would prefer working from home even after the pandemic given how flexibly they can work within the home office setup. Work from home, though is a phase, will be a memorable one. The office days and office fun will be back someday. We have office fun virtually too, by having virtual lunches or events, but we all know that laughter and banter can’t be enjoyed virtually as much as in person. Looking at my wardrobe, I remember how much I used to plan to dress up for the next day to office, one of my motivations to go to office. I imagine the clothes in my wardrobe expressing envy to my pyjamas now that their roles have reversed. The pandemic changed our lives in many ways and even after getting back to office, we will still be cautious enough to be socially distanced, divided by bottles of sanitizers and masks, until we get the vaccine of enthusiasm back to enjoy the previous old, former normal life. Till that happens, we must continue reaping the fruits of work from home in the best way that we can and show this virus that nothing can beat us down!

Battling the stereotypes

 

“Yatra naryastu pujyante ramante tatra Devata”

Meaning: Gods rejoice wherever women are given their due respect

Now that work from home and limited outings have become the new normal, we all have learnt to embrace it. During this period, OTT platforms have ensured that there is no dearth of content to watch. Even my weekend plans necessarily include the list of movies or a new series that I’d like to watch. Recently, I watched a Malayalam film ‘The Great Indian Kitchen’, at the end of which I couldn’t stop myself applauding for the female protagonist’s courage. As per society’s expectations, this woman gets married in a typical household, where the only role of a woman is to cook, clean and satisfy male egos. Her dreams, her aspirations have no value and are easily overlooked and lost among the drudgery of her daily routine. This was an inspiring film about a common yet special woman who defies the society’s beliefs that a woman’s place is only in the kitchen. How she breaks these shackles and becomes independent is something that would resonate with every woman.

I developed a newfound respect for all women or rather superwomen, who look after their family, cook, clean and are excellent home managers. I would not call them ‘housewives’ but ‘home managers’ who are at par with the managers in a business organization. At the same time, the movie also made me think how we as society have this line of distinction between jobs for men and women. Though today we do have some great male chefs in the world, it is generally expected, even today, that kitchen should ideally be only a woman’s lookout. Same goes with raising of children. Surely, today there are husbands who equally take up responsibilities and help their wives in all the household work, yet there would be some who would see this ‘advancement’ like an eighth wonder of the world.

We believe that times have changed and society is adapting to the reversal of roles as well. Yet, there are some families who remain firm with their traditional and primitive thinking. Women are experts at doing the balancing act between career and family. While some may think that women can’t have both and they must make a choice between the two, there are women who are successful managers at home and in office as well. They are actively involved in the decisions taken at home, children’s school activities and give their best at work as well. Why go very far, we have seen especially during last year, how our fellow women colleagues have balanced work, kids, their online school and household work in absence of maids. Of course, we must also appreciate the support that they receive from their husbands and families. While women can achieve anything they set their mind to, it’s also the support of a strong pillar called family that helps them reach where they want to. In other words, women are multitalented and multitask, as though they are really bestowed with ten hands like Goddess Durga.

Sometimes it is easier to overcome the challenges arising at work, but some women have another difficult test to pass – the test of marriage. I would call it a test, because most of the times the criteria to pass this test are ‘slim and fair’ along with ‘educated’, but slim and fair are given more preference, even in some ‘forward thinking’ families, who think that their sons are absolutely perfect. While ‘Fair & Lovely’ too thought of revamping to ‘Glow & Lovely’, we still have some time to go till the society learns to see the inner glow of a woman for her talents and inner beauty, which is hidden behind her scars, chubby physique and dark skin. All women might not be ‘marriage material’ however the society defines this concept, but they are material to bring about a change in the thought process of this same society by breaking the stereotypes. The movie also shows how the society considers menstruation as something impure and expects a woman to refrain from all household work and even participating in religious functions. In the olden days, this was means for a woman to get some rest while on her periods. In this fast-paced life of today’s women, periods are something does not stop them to take up new challenges, like the sanitary pads’ advertisements show. Therefore, when a menstruation leave policy was proposed in some organizations, it was seen as a discrimination against women to offer equal opportunities, using biology like a weapon.  Women undergo the difficult process of labour to give birth to new life and menstruation just prepares their body for this natural process. Therefore, considering this ‘period of periods’ as a sign that a woman won’t be her normal self is hardly fair because menstruation and childbirth are phenomena that show women are way stronger to endure everything.

A woman does not need only marriage and children to complete her. In fact she has control over her own body and may choose to not have children, which does not make her any less of a woman. Her own company can bring her joy too; ‘self-partnered’ as Emma Watson calls it. The start of any revolution or change begins from an individual household and it requires daily effort, like a sapling requiring water to blossom. It could be something as simple as appreciating and expressing gratitude to your mother, wife, sister, friend or colleague or supporting in every little way. The smile that your smallest of support or encouraging words would bring to her face, amidst a tiring day, would mark a beginning of that revolutionary change.