Lessons Taught by COVID - (written on 27.12.2020)

Collapsed have the boundaries,

Of power, money, color, creed or race, 
A catastrophe unseen, a war unusual, 
A single Global enemy, united we face, 
While on one hand, distancing us, 
This horrendous Black Swan, 
'World Wide Web' on the other, 
Draws us closer, to tackle this head on. 

As we approach and eagerly wait for the midnight bell that ushers us into a brand new year leaving behind as deemed by most a ‘disastrous 2020’ which witnessed this pandemic bringing the entire globe to a standstill, economies crumbling, natural disasters wreaking havoc, border tensions escalating, protests and communal riots. While we debate whether this year was Blessing or Curse? Boon or Bane? Living through it definitely leaves us more determined, much wiser.

As Charles Darwin said “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, it is one that is most adaptable to change”. And a lot changed as 2020 imparted some priceless life lessons.

I was a proud employee as I saw, my organization quick off the mark in reacting to this opportunity, setting off on an exhilarating journey from April’2020 becoming the first private lab approved by ICMR for COVID testing, as I saw the first pictures of my colleagues in lab donning their PPE, smiling and all set for their front line war, all other teams re-aligning overnight, processes fast streamlining to provide seamless services, the commitment & dedication of all working employees from office or from home day and night, acclimatization to all baffling government restrictions which kept changing at the drop of a hat, yet emerging victorious and making its own way, under the most able guidance of the Captain of the Ship who directs and always holds us all together with the sole purpose to make a real difference to the society , serve customers the best!

In these trying times, it was “digitization” which kept us afloat. ‘Virtual’ became the new ‘Ritual’. I read on my ‘In shorts’ app some time back a compelling article on what happens every minute on Internet now. A few of the many facts that astonished me were – World Wide – in a minute - consumers spend 10 lakh dollars online, Whatsapp users share 4,16,66,667  messages, Amazon ships 6659 packages, Netflix users stream 4,04,444 hours of video, Zoom hosts 208,333 participants in a meeting, Instagram users post 3,47,222 stories. Time will tell if interactive platforms like Byju’s will become successful in making the classrooms obsolete. Expanse widening & penetration deepening is extremely palpable and fast transforming into a new limb without which surviving is becoming slowly impossible.

Digitization of Health care in a country like ours where the ratios of doctors, nurses, beds etc per unit population are largely skewed holds utmost importance. Book a test online and a technician reaches your house instantly. Many quarantine centers were also eventually closed down with more awareness on fast booming Home Health care segment. One – Third of the Doctor Consultations were done virtually in the pandemic. Corona gave a tremendous impetus through Digital channel to improve accessibility and affordability of Health care services by making it reach to your doorstep. If you do not wish to step out to buy your medicines – do not worry - a loud voice - “Urvasi – Urvasi Take it is Easy PharmEasy” will leave no stone unturned by popping up in almost every commercial break. With new innovations, of also now incorporating in your handheld a ‘Bluetooth stethoscope’ for diagnosis, as informed to me by one our clients, a plethora of Online Diagnostic Aggregators now provide end to end services from consultations, to ordering medicines & booking lab tests at great discounts, providing home health care, to storing your prescriptions, medical records, readings, medicine reminders all on a single platform. 

“There is no smoke without fire” we presume when we read or see a piece on the news, but many a times there is. It was new and extremely disheartening for me to witness the audacity of certain media houses to openly circulate “Fake articles” carrying zero truth about my organization! Pandemic provided enough fodder for the news channels to run 24/7 only sowing fear and panic with no portrayal of recovery or hope, without bringing to light the other dire issues that our country faces today. Where high TRPs, more eyeballs, in some cases a political propaganda remains as the agenda, the biggest learning is to distance ourselves from creating a strong perception without taking into account the complete picture , both sides of the coin.

Personally, there is nothing more than a heart-felt gratitude for 2020.

-      Thank you for bestowing upon me the Job I keep and bringing into life , my mentors who keep making me better when most of the country grappled with an unemployment soaring to an all-time high of 25% during lockdown

-      Thank you for making me realize how less we need to live

-      Thank you for making me realize the importance of committing to the moment

-      Thank you for making me respect nature and as all memes circulating on WhatsApp correctly educated on how nature reacts in its own ways while it healed, while the ozone replenished, while the animals wandered on the roads they lived locking us inside our houses

-      Thank you for putting food on my plate when I daily saw a big line of migrant workers standing in queue for days together in scorching heat 

-      Thank you for making me understand the importance of “Good Health” and that care is not limited to just avoiding the virus, but also utilizing the body to the fullest as told by a Husband in the latest running Marathi serial to his fat wife “Use it or Lose it” along with the state of positivity and importance of holistic wellness

Looking forward to 2021 and hoping it imparts more wisdom, more knowledge, more smiles…

My Lockdown Poem - (written on 29.05.2020)

When some '0.12' microns bring the planet to standstill, 

Empty pockets, hungry stomachs, billions of smiles snatching, 

When meaning to life under the mask is rigidly hiding, 

Can every bad in life be eventually a blessing? 

Fear Wide Spread, counting every dead...

Why making 'everyday count' becomes so difficult instead

Succumbed to poverty, crimes, accidents, suicides in lakhs, 

Attention, care, towards them, why did the nation grossly lack? 

While some couch potatoes, glued to Netflix, 

Getting bigger by the day while gleefully binge eating, 

Some others are dragging the bitter load of life, 

Walking hundreds of miles - in harsh Sun pricking..

Witnessed never before such unusual time, 

Compelling species to live by the new paradigm, 

Life lessons of 'minimalism' strongly imparting, 

A powerful path of 'self dependence', happily paving

When a nation of world's highest youngsters, fiercely fight, 

To win, change the world, display the might, 

Together with conviction this whirlwind confronting, 

'This too shall pass', reminding oneself, in this journey daunting.

Set to return soon is the awaited hustle & bustle, 

Those fast moving cars, daily train tussle, 

The human touch and connection so dear, 

Laughter & Banter, those celebrations of New Year

So, hone your skills, Rise and Shine, 

Become a better 'you', in this lockdown time, 

Smile, Energize, Bounce back from the Blues, 

As some say 'Hope and Faith is the last thing one can lose'

Random Musings..

Ushered, we have, in the age of Android,
Leaving the emotions of our species hackneyed
Chasing the hand of clock which steals
The precious time that runs on wheels

Dawns on us a stage in life,
Where letting it go becomes involuntary,
What was once a tightly clenched fist
I have slowly learned to open and smile!

JUST WONDERING!

Do embellished words glorify the purpose? 

Are solutions sought by creating a ruckus? 

When convolution of thoughts reaches the peak, 

I WONDER why simplicity is the most difficult to seek! 

How a book ten inches apart, 

Can instantaneously put some to sleep, 

But music playing four blocks away, 

I WONDER, why compels us to tap our feet! 

Why can't logic,sense,rationality, 

Resist a gush of emotions? 

Why do heart and brain fail, 

Miserably,I WONDER,at their negotiations! 

How each one by default gets trained to tackle, 

Anxiety,Stress and Competition shackles? 

Yet cannot explain how all those just vanish, 

In Mother's lap ,I WONDER,how ultimate solace is achieved!

Yeh hain MUMBAI meri jaan!

What is Mumbai? 

A city of dreams,economic hub,home to around 14 milion people,cosmopolitan!In a split second you could garner hundred answers.As precisely stated by one of my favourite legendary writer and artist Lt.Pu.La.Deshpande,"Mumbaikaraancha nasheeb he ghadyalyachya katyala bandhalele aste." 

However as a matter of fact Mumbai is also a city where resilience has become a habbit,people are impervious to politicians who act like flibbertigibbets,a city which has Asia's largest slum! 

Since I consider the last one as the greatest hindrance in city's progress I would like to elaborate on the same. There are certain facts that baffled me. 

1]Almost 54% of Mumbaikars live in slums. 

2] Another 25% to 30% live in chawls and on footpaths. 

3] It is estimated that 100-300 new families come to city everyday and subsequently land up in a slum colony or erect a shack wherever possible. 

4] According to World Bank's estimate of the city reaching 2.25 crore mark by 2025 ,would be the time when there would be slums practically everywhere. 

The expanse is widening day by day,characterized by filth, diseases, poverty and crime too. One of the recent TOI articles stated that it takes two years on the whole for the postmen to get accustomed to the lanes, routes and houses in Dharavi slums. Moreover even the Intelligence agencies have no option but to take their help in tracking down the criminals.It is no less than a deja vu reckoning that everything looks just the same. 

Another major drawback is city's extremely poor urban planning.It is one of the reasons for the horrendous catastrophe of 26th July,2005. 

So I was wondering, for a city which has allowed us to exercise our freedom to a great extent, what is it that we can do?It all boils down to power,electing an Amol Arte from Paa would probably help but my question is, "Does he exist"? For all those who promised to make Mumbai as beautiful as Shanghai,we can only retort by saying,"tumhala Shanghaila jatay kai?"

Dedicated to all Bio Students!

Enamoured by Science of Life, 

Are me and my clan, 

Inexplicable are certain mechanisms, 

Be it micro-organism or man! 

Did you know your hereditary material, 

Or DNA when unwound, 

Can cover the circumference of earth, 

Twice in two rounds? 

Or that we humans so complex, 

Are actually graveyards of stars, 

Did u know the tounges of chameleons, 

And fighter jets work at par? 

For all chauvinistic males, 

With patronizing attitude, 

Nature is definitely biased in our favour, 

Y chromosome shortening explains it all! ;) 

If a bio-student falls in love, 

He would wonder, 

If its due to an overexpression of gene, 

If he dozes off in a lecture , 

He would explain, "What do I do? 

Excess secretion of serotonin!" 

Nearing is the time when 

Sympathetic nervous system will get active, 

"Examss!!!"The word is enough,

To send shudders down the spine! 

 I wish everyone all the best. Hope biology doesn't fail us :)

The Urban Lifeline

Local Trains .I will be indebted to them for the rest of my life for carrying me to and fro for the past extremely important five and half years of my life and God knows how many more to come! I believe that using this mode of transport requires you to possess special skills. It is an art which you can master eventually with experience. I still vividly remember the day when I travelled in a crowded train with my mother and brother for the first time and how petrified I was by just looking at people around me on the station and in the train, endless ,limitless, incalculable! Thanks to my mother who successfully dragged me out of the train when my legs were on the platform and my head still somewhere inside just when the train was about to start again! The experience was quite traumatic but after five and half years I have a different take, a fresh perspective about this wonder. 

 Trains can be fun. Especially in the second class shopping becomes easier, it is entertainment coupled with wide range of products that you can come across under one roof. Hairclips, ear-rings, rings, cosmetics, nail-paints ,food-items , folders, pouches, purses, posters, safety pins, dress materials, fruits, vegetables, chocolates, thread and needle, almost all utility items at the cheapest rates ever! If not anything else atleast your eyes remain occupied most of the time judging what is better and wondering about the other person’s choice. I must admit that some of these sellers are superlatively talented and often sound rhetoric! I am absolutely amazed at the speed at which they can talk and repeat it unceasingly! Beggars use trains as a way of making livelihood. Some of the eunuchs are dressed in the most fashionable and trendy way surprise you by speaking in English. If you shell out some money impressed by the entertainment that they provide, they bless you with the most strange words .The most recent one that I got was, “hailaa!!!pehli baar kisi college ki ladki ne itna diya. Bhagwan tujhe pass kare aur tujhe salman jaisa koi accha chikna pati mile (then you wonder if you really did the right thing!!!!) 

 Train travel teaches you a lot of things. Couple of them would be : 

 1] Patience: Even if someone is standing on your leg, someone else is pulling your hair, your bag is in some entirely different direction, you are gasping for breath, fighting with the heat, the train has stopped in between and nothing other than eyelids can move, my friend there is nothing you can do about it but be “PATIENT” and as calm as you can be in that situation! 

 2] Co-operation : It is the key to your existence and survival in the train if you want to get down at the desired station because it is not you but the people around you who decide your fate, you don’t have to do much, just move with the crowd, before you know it you are inside or outside the train. Nine or twelve coaches carry such a mixed breed of people with different temperaments and from different strata and sections of society. 

A day of travel without a single argument is rare. Travelling in the peak hours is often frustrating. Abuses hurled at each other of different types and languages according to the class of the coach are omnipresent in the air around the train. People manage to read, eat, sleep(snore with their mouth open amongst the hustle and bustle), talk, knit sweaters, listen to songs. Most of them are aimlessly wondering, some smiling without a reason and ofcourse how can I forget to mention the bhajan groups which with their “chiplya” and “zhanja” sing diligently even if the suras don’t accompany them. You can never feel lonely in a train. It feels as if the whole world is moving with you .

My favorite place in the train is at the door. Standing right at the door, moving in the direction of the train, staring at the never ending tracks, having all over you the wind so wild, so unrestrained, you feel as if you are flying. Monsoons are an icing on the cake when you cut through the rain and droplets touch your face, you feel ecstatic!