None of this would be happening in the world if china were a free and democratic country - Nobel winning novelist Mario Llosa
"We Indians don't remember pandemics despite millions of people dying.. We remember WW1 &WW2,Ramayana/Mahabharata or even Jallianwala Bagh which killed few thousands, but not cholera of 1817 or Influenza of 1920, because there is no clear ENEMY and the memory is Negative memory, It is death by disease. Families, Communities and Countries tend to erase the memories of the dead.. The ENEMY here is invisible, unseen and the human psyche makes no sense of pain that comes from unknown .." writes author and historian Chimay Tumbe in his incredible book The age of pandemics as he tries to document how India and her people in past faced the scale of devastation, and the resilience with which people faced those uncertain times..
A year ago, if you told me that only by losing something that you can determine how much you value it, I would have asked you to shut up. But then a damn micro organism, a virus, cuts things out of your life ,then you start seeing what you miss and what you don't.
How does one go about dying..?
With all the distractions of normal days, we do not realize what happens to us or how would you go about, when your dear and near ones die? The FEAR of loss or just being afraid of losing some one you know is a dangerous emotion this pandemic has let loose on everyone. The sense of ambition, jealously, ego, falsehood, wealth, power, class...overrides the sense of security in any and every way. Twenty five years of my stint on earth went past by thinking and claiming "I'm All this and that". The assumptions of I, Me and Mine fell brick by brick as I saw, read, thought and explored the fragility of human life, the fear of loosing others affects our ability to reason and see commonality.
Fear changes our perspective more than we realize. 'Negative visualization' of world, people and scenarios breakdowns the toxic sense of I, me and mine. Loosing my Grandmother to COVID shook the biases and ignorance that had pilled up over my growing up years. And certainly the future looks like a series of pit and axe..
"who on earth
is going to teach me---
The world
is filled with people
who have never died"....
No big success No big failure but the little things..
In the last few years, I have learnt it the hard way that long-term plans do not work out, at least in my case I was naïve enough to assume that my privilege and pretentious personality that I put up would some way be in agreement with all that I thought I deserved in life.
All my 'career' plans and the 'Big dreams' I thought were unique , went down the drain pretty quickly. And what do I write about the arrogance I displayed all the way ?
Staying up late at nights, trying hard to make sense of everything and whatever I read and saw was exhausting and inexact at its best. But then this year brings in the simple and plain lesson that we all are shaped by our circumstances.
A new personality that your introduced to, a warm relationship, beautiful poetry, an intense book that you read, an enlightening conversation, 'aha moments' while listening to a podcast, the beauty of a spiritual moment or the intensity an artist emotes in a movie or music or literature throws upon the significance of little things the human persona yearns and set's one heart on.
In a world that's changing at an incredible speed, the labels we put upon ourselves and others eliminate the sense of greatest beauty in little things. The fast changing metrics of success and failure brings no clarity, but an attempt to eliminate extraneous stuff clarifies who we are to ourselves, then it only makes sense that it would clarify who we are to others.
"When I think of
all the books
still left for me to read,
I am certain of further happiness"...
Trust the chaos around..
I find myself losing a lot of empathy and, at the same time, strangely enough becoming more spiritual. Call it god, or a vibe. As you have a conversation inside your head while praying you seek the universe to make you more kinder, help you sail through the storms. But then having faith, constantly signals that everything will eventually align to either benefit me or harm me.
The chaos and pain that follows after every failure and stress not just brings out the worst but also the 'essence' of people. If your a bad friend or if one trying to get out of a toxic relationship or constant failures despite efforts can have a long term effect on ones life and confidence. But then this beautiful spiritual experience is like a good night sleep, the next day as you wake up it does not signal a hard life but just life.. Trust the chaos of world, politics, ethics and so on.. 'as it gets worse it gets better'...
The pandemic has slowed down life so much that, this realization of the double-sidedness of events changed how we see the world and its problems, as well.
"we are not born with tears.
your first dozen cries are dry.
It takes some time for the world to arrive
and salt the eyes"
Anger and Change are No good friends ..
Once a young woman believed being rebellious, having opinions and indulging oneself all the time brings change. But what change ?
The mind is constantly angry and occupied in proving others wrong. The thought of having to bring in change what ever she thought was 'change' ended up to be a battle between two sides. An angry, sick and arrogant side unwilling to unlearn and listen and the other side rambled with the disgust of unmaterialized change.
This confused woman was keenly looking at the world that was fighting a pandemic together. she observed that the world did not fight with each other to lead the humanity into a covid free world instead they faced the challenge together. Policy makers ,leaders, scientists, medical works did not argue over what was happening or were the scientist trying to bring down each other.
Instead there was a process, struggle and fight to row this world out of the biggest challenges of human history.
Into the trap were this disappointed men and women, who wanted the reward and not the struggle.. Who wanted the result and not the process.. who were in love with not the fight but only the victory..
2020 makes it all loud and clear life doesn't work that way...
"There are years that ask questions
and the years that answer"...
What have I learnt from 2020?
That we do what we do..
we always tell ourselves 'when I'm rich I will do this.., when I have this carrier I will be happy,
When I do this, people will respect me... But 2020 taught me I/we won't. If you're not doing it now, you won't do It then. Think of all the precious lives lost this year and the raising mortality across the world...
This year exposed the people to this issue --that they were the problem all along.
I feel FREE strangely at a time that we have the least freedom, despite many failures and challenges of this year, the perspective of 2020 can go a long way in making us better people and stich a world more kinder and empathetic than it was .
Everything is held together with stories.
That is all that is holding us together,
stories and stories and stories that we tell ourselves....
In many cases, removing the time constraints exposed people them to this issue—that