I found a lot people around me amongst family and friends who were restless during the recent lockdown in most countries. They were uncomfortable to sit at home and refrain from their normal activities of the day. This brought in a feeling of anxiety and insecurity amongst them.

I do agree that this period of the pandemic is a challenge to everyone of us. It is impacting individuals, families, societies and nations at large. While individuals are feeling lonely, families and societies are getting disenchanted. Of course, nations are facing the economic challenges as a fallout of the pandemic and the consequent lockout.

The question before everyone is – “When will this be over ? When will life normalise for everyone ? Nobody knows the answer – not even the public health specialist as this virus is new to everyone. Everyone is trying their best to cope with it. The individuals, families and societies are putting up a brave face and dealing with this unknown challenge.

One thing I am sure of. This too shall pass. Having lived in the coastal part of a state, which faced cyclones every year during the monsoon, I can say with experience that nobody could predict a cyclone accurately. Although I must admit that the predictions of cyclones and storms have improved over the years, it is still an act of God. Nature’s fury is still unpredictable.

Today the forecast of natural disasters are much better and so is the preparedness of the state. A good example is the state of Orissa, which faces atleast one cyclone every year. It affects the coastal belt, where the poorest sections of society have to face the brunt. However, in the last few years, we have seen that the government of Orissa has prepared very well, evacuated the target populations and prevented many human disasters. So, even though it is God sent, human beings have been able to plan and prevent catastrophes consistently.

We need to believe that this too shall pass. After all, all of us as individuals and collectively as a society have misused Nature and may be it is just a gentle reminder to us from Nature to mend our ways. God realises that the citizens of the world have suffered enough due to this pandemic and hence will find ways and means to end it soon either through a vaccine or through herd immunity.

We need to believe in ourselves and commit to ourself both as individuals and communities that we will respect nature much better than we did in the past. We need to believe that this too shall pass and life will be normal again.

Life is a cycle and the good days will follow soon.

S Ramesh Shankar

30th May 2020

Man is a social animal. We realise it today more than anytime in our lives in the past. We are humans and we need to be socially connected to survive and grow. Loneliness can be killing and it can be the worst punishment for any person at home or at work.

If we recall all the days we are staying alone at home, we realise how difficult it is when we get back home from work. We cannot speak to the TV, laptop or the fridge. We yearn for people to be around us. It is then we realise the value of our family members, who are there for us all the time and surround us with warmth and good emotions, unconditionally without expecting anything in return.

Now, as we enter the new workplace after the lockdown, we realise that there are less people around at work. Further, they seem to be avoiding each other and hardly speak to one another. The scare of the virus is taking away our natural urge to interact with each other. What should we do in such a scary environ ?

We could have meetings around a table maintaining the physical distance, covering our faces with masks, sanitising our hands and still talking to each other. While we need to take all necessary precautions to prevent the virus from infecting us and we infecting others, we need not stop talking to people around us. If not anything else, we can smile at one another.

Here I would like to share a real life story to emphasise that if our intent is good and we want to help others no virus can attack us ever. One of my close friends is an orthopaedic surgeon. He was detected with cancer some years back and the oncologists had predicted that even after the best treatment he may not survive for long. This doctor apart from serving his patients volunteers his time training students, professionals and others on “how to live life ethically ?”. He has survived his cancer for many years now and has defied all predictions by his treating oncologists.

I am not for one saying that we can neglect the virus or the cancer, which may endanger our lives. I am only professing that if we continue to take precautions, we can still continue to relate to people and interact with them. If we cannot walk across to everyone at work, nothing prevents us from picking up the phone and enquiring someone’s well being. If our intent is good and we are there to help our customers, suppliers or employees or society at large, no virus can touch us. Our body will produce nature immunes to deal with any virus including Covid.

Having said that, a virus or cancer can attack any of us irrespective of all our precautions and good intentions. In that case, we have to go for treatment and deal with it like any other disease.

I would say the new workplace provides us a great opportunity to build on our strengths and get over our weaknesses. Our strength is relationships and we need to continue to thrive on it to get things done. Our limitation is our productivity as we tend to waste a lot of time in gossip or unnecessary interactions. This is a welcome change to get over those weaknesses and improve our productivity to compete with the best in the world.

A new office meeting room may look like the photo above. That may be the new normal and we need to adapt to it

I personally feel that if we build on our relationships and create the most productive workplace in the world, no country in the world will be able to compete with us.

Opportunity is knocking at our doors today. Let us grab it with both our hands.

S Ramesh Shankar

The world is hit by a virus. The best of technology and human power is not able to combat this deadly virus. Human lives are being lost every day in thousands around the world due the impact of this virus. What lessons we can learn from this human catastrophe.

I decided that every day I will reflect on one limitation of myself and explore how I can change for the better in the future. Today, I will focus on the innumerable human beings who serve us from morning to night. Do we treat them as humans on equal footing like us or do we still continue to live in our glass houses ?

The outbreak of this virus taught us a lesson that social distancing is applicable for everyone. This virus does not discriminate based on nationality, caste, religion or state you belong to. It randomly impacts people who violate the guidance given by the medical professionals and the government authorities.

On the other hand, we as human continue to discriminate based on caste, religion, social status and nationality. Today let me go through a day in our lives and help us reflect on how many people impact our lives positively sacrificing their own welfare for the societal good.

Our day starts with the morning newspaper boy. He may be working beyond his education hours to earn that extra buck to support his family. We say let us stop the newspaper boy because he may spread the virus. Then the milkman. Imagine the milkman stopping supplies as he is worried about spread of the virus. Our day will begin on a sour note.

We stopped the maids, drivers and Gardners in our community when the lockdown began yesterday. There was a big hue and cry. The members felt that they could not survive without maids for a day. They wanted the maids to sanitise a million times a day but were least concerned about the maids getting impacted by the same virus. We have become so self centred that we want all services possible under the sun but we are least concerned about the health and welfare of maids, drivers and Gardners. As if, they are not human beings like any of us.

We want the sanitary workers to visit us everyday to collect the wet waste. We cannot find an organic way to compost the waste for a few days in a garden or even a pot inside the house. We may get impacted by wet waste inside the house but the sanitary workers are fully immune to all such infections.

Our lives are incomplete without cooks. How can we imagine cooking our own food or cutting our own vegetables ? How does it impact us if cooks are travelling in crowded buses and trains to help us out in our homes. After all it is their duty to serve us and not ours to care for them.

The list can go on. We have our security guards in our campuses who are working 24 x 7. We have municipal employees serving us. We have the utility employees, the police and most important the medical and health workers working round the clock to keep us safe and healthy. What are we doing in return ? In some communities, we are ostracising medical personnel and airlines staff as if they are coming back home only to spread the virus to us. We do not realise that they are putting their lives on the line to serve us day and night.

We as humans have to learn to be grateful to other human beings every day of our lives. No job is menial. No human is high or low. Everyone contributes to the happiness of mankind. We realise only when we pick up the brooms as to how difficult it is to clean the garden in front of our homes. If we put the wet waste in compost bins, we realise how much these workers sacrifice to keep our environs clean.

It is time to look within and change. Let us commit to treat every human being around us as human beings and respect whatever they do and be grateful to them.

S Ramesh Shankar

25th March 2020