Wednesday, 29 April 2020

WE ARE THE RAINBOW IN SOMEONE’S CLOUD




The sun is a daily reminder that we too can rise again from the darkness and we too can shine our own light and spread the glow for others to shine.
The thought is hope in this sea of petrified humanity, enervated & with despair.
The family, relations, friends and any person known to us would become dodgy in days ahead, weakening the cord that held societies.
 Hope is that cord that we must not let go and fall in an abyss in trying times.
This antipathy would be a new way to live in the world that we can expect to change our world as we knew it not in distant past.  
The humanity evolved over centuries by touch, embraces, holding and shaking hands would go a rapid transformation with a wall of uncertainty ahead of us.
We are now learning that touching things, being with other people and breathing the air in an enclosed space can be risky to our existence.
This uncertainty can never vanish completely for anyone who lived through these endemic times.
The comfort of being in the presence of near ones might be replaced by a greater comfort by an absence of it. Relational intimacy would undergo a transformation that would start questioning oneness.
For developing businesses, Instead of asking- Lets meet over lunch, we would be asking- Can we do it online and over video conference?
Relationship shall never be the same again.
Patriotism would be more inclusive and might not need badges and medallions hanging on chest with stars on shoulders of a uniform to manifest it.
It would also include civil society as large who fought the battle against the pandemics and put their lives on line to fight an invisible enemy that put the entire human race in front of a death row.
During this epidemic not a single bullet would be fired, but it tumbled humanity downhill with immense loss of life, livelihood and with permanent trauma and damages.
We would now witness market-based models for social organization fail. Governments world over would be required to care for society and subsistence to all who need it would be a norm for a long time to come and failing to do it would make them pointed target for world to see.
Self-seeking behaviour of world leaders would be immediately rejected by the society and leaders would be made accountable. Current political ideologies would wilt and welfare-ism would gain tractions.
When this ends, Governments world over would reorient politics.  Governments would allocate substantial new investments in public goods-for health, education, rehabilitation and public services.
Defence budgets would be seriously cut worldwide and would be deployed for reconstructions od societies and not for its destructions.
The economy and the social order would collapse if the government doesn’t guarantee income for the millions of workers who will lose their jobs in a major recession or depression that world has not seen ever- not even during the great depression.  
Triumph of hope and life over fear would still drive the underlying religious belief, but all religions have to interpret the holy books and rituals afresh.
Congregation being part of human gregarious nature would now be differently advocated by religious leaders.
Use of electronic media to address the faithful is already being used and in future, a la carte offer over electronic media could be a norm for conducting a ritual to preaching and even for confession in some faiths.
Obeisance and donations online for furtherance of religious bodies’ social services would be norms. After a while, people would still congregate to their holy places, but way the blessings and greetings are exchanged would look very different.  
All faiths would have to deal with the challenges of keeping faith alive under the adverse conditions at different times.
Religion in future would challenge conceptions of what it means to be a preacher and to follower. Interconnected humanity would help bridge the motive behind religion’s significance and would seek common ground to eliminate frivolity and reduce contact rituals. 
Seeking truth through its credible emissary, science, would gain more protagonists that have been declining against faith & religion in more and more societies would be a norm again.
The world has heard and seen science work in this lockdown to work its magic against theological practices that helped none and could not evade a single death out of this pandemic.
Some countries that relied on the power of God soon realised that God was too busy with his agenda to heal the world otherwise, asides of COVID in the faithful who ultimately were sheltered by science and not by rituals and offerings to God.
In the absence of a viable vaccine for the foreseeable future treatment could involve managing Covid-19 by treating its symptoms rather than its cause.
There is no easy solution. The months ahead will involve a fragile balancing act between the interests of public health, society and the economy, with governments trusting each other on this epidemic more than ever before.
The pandemic battle is only half the story about in finding a solution While half the battle will be in developing the tools to treat the virus, the other half will be to have enough doses and, distributing these in a fair and equitable manner.
If greed again sits on top of fear, then the battle won would be lost still till everyone, rich, poor, marginalised, fringe all get the treatment to get well. If not, then the virus would return with more ferocity and new mutants.
I hope humanity prevails over money and rogue capitalism.
 Personally, I am happy that at least for a generation, if not more, we can expect that public respect for expertise in public health and in medical professionals to be at least restored partially.
Doctors would get back their lost glories in non patients & so would be the scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and all who contributed in building this world, country by country, society by society and by brick by brick.
While Corona wanes progressively, as we all expect, let us celebrate hope with our Doctors, Scientists, Engineers, Frontline Warriors, Police, Civil Society & pretty much everyone else who have contributed & restrained themselves to fight out an invisible enemy.
But when it gets circled by the vanguards involved in vanquishing it, would not help the viruses see the light of the day again.
The day is not far where hopes would thrive again and humanity and science grow everyday to assuage the sufferings of the world and the world itself.

29 April 2020   

1 comment:

  1. Tend to agree mostly; our priorities will change for the better and governments all over should focus on public health and primary education more. Let's see...

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