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The reflection

Come to think of it, until now, I never thought of these questions raised by Mukta.

For the past one year, life had continued to flow, although not as ‘usual’.

Now that I look back as I respond to these questions, only one word comes to my mind that explains all the questions and covers all the emotions during the pandemic year of 2020.

The word is ‘Hope’. We lived with hope and learned not to give up hope, ever!

We consider ourselves fortunate as retired octogenarians, we stayed far away from the center of the action. We appreciate the emotions of Mukta, and many others like her, who followed their profession with confidence, courage, and conviction in the face of suffering, misery and death surrounding them. All we could do to relieve her anxiety when she came home after long hours was to commend and support her confidence, conviction, and service based on hope. We all know that these epidemics and pandemics have come and gone in the past, we believe that this too shall pass. We did what we could do, to protect ourselves and everyone else in whose contact we might have come, by taking prescribed protective measures. We left the rest to the destiny.

Frankly speaking, we did not miss anything. Communication with family and friends continued even though travel and personal contacts were curtailed. All essentials were available. What became abundantly clear was that all the decorative luxuries of social gatherings, entertainments, sports and parties were not really part of the essentials. We could easily do without them.

It also became clear that the concepts of confined spaces were being replaced by expandable virtual spaces, specially in the fields of education, communications, and many professional organizations. What, however, was strikingly apparent was the lack of ‘the human touch’ especially in the vital profession of healthcare. The personal face to face expression of compassion to console in hours of need, something that is difficult to achieve by other means.

Frankly, we did not notice any change in the behavior of family, friends, or neighbors. Certainly, there was an atmosphere of fear and concern for life that became the talk of the occasion, but no one was afraid of any imminent catastrophe. It was amazing to see the human resilience and how we take things in our stride.

At our age and stage, our prayers were directed more towards those affected by the calamity rather than for the fear of our own lives. Having survived for more than eight decades; our survival was not the issue with us, but survival of others certainly was, specially of our near and dear ones; and we prayed with extra vigor for their welfare.

As for the lessons, we learned about the fragility of life, impermanence of things, superfluous relationships, and attachments with unnecessary things became even more irrelevant.

It became obvious that all that one needs are the basic physical necessities, mental peace and serenity, and happiness and contentment for the soul. Everything else is greed that one can easily dispense with.

Hope is the strongest positive emotion; fear is the strongest negative one. Hope can sustain life under any circumstances, as it did during the past year of pandemic turmoil.

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