FROM THE PEN OF YOUNG MINDS
"It's a pandemic."
"The whole world is shut."
"Millions lost their lives and millions, their source of living."
The pandemic is Covid-19 and the media, the news, the neighbourhood, the memes and discussions are all centred on it. The only thing you here is how the world has come to a halt, the economy is suffering and so are we, how people are getting affected and how people are dying. We humans have evolved majestically and have overcome all such crisis in the past, we will this time also.
One measure that the governments, world over have taken to control the pandemic is, lockdown. Soon the focus shifted from COVID 19 to the lockdown and its aftermath. Needless to discuss those, a lot has been said and published. But besides the dark side there was also a bright side to it, and to tell you the truth the brightness of the bright side was much brighter than the darkness of the dark side. Confused? Let’s see some of them.
Environment healed
Unlike regular weekday mornings lockdown mornings were quiet, serene and peaceful, with cool breeze blowing, birds twittering, butterflies fluttering and at night the sky would lit up with millions of stars. With no vehicles moving, no heavy workplace air conditioners running Air Quality Index (AQI) plummeted. You cannot deny the fact that the danger of many other diseases was reduced and our immune system improved. So actually corona virus became our saviour!
While talking about the environment let's not forget our rivers. Yamuna, which is exposed to wastes from a number of drains, became cleaner by 33%, a number, which the government could not reach in 30 years even after spending 5000 crores, imagine, how clean other rivers had become. While the fact is that we cannot survive without air and water (and food of course) these two benefited the most during lockdown. Which leaves us wondering, should there be a lockdown once every year?
Lifestyle healed
People who never exercised started exercising at home because their movement got restricted and the only way to make their bodies move was to exercise at home, it soon became a part of their daily routine. Now, after the lockdown also they are continuing with it. Gym goers and players found novel ways to stay fit. Not just this, people started consuming only home cooked food which is way healthier than what we eat outside.
Relationships healed
Of course social ties were cut off, but how social we were actually, before the lockdown? Even then we only used to socialise through digital medium. This lockdown made us realise the value of our family, peers, friends, colleagues, neighbours and even our foes and we looked forward to meeting them, whom we only wish good morning and good night on WhatsApp and quite often ignored their messages.
Humans healed
Did anyone notice the reduction in crime rate? It was near zero during lockdown. The news had nothing new to show but only about corona virus. That shifted us to reading, meditating, writing, developing other hobbies and watching informational programs. All these helped us develop spiritually. There were also no accidents or road crashes. Doesn’t it bring us to the conclusion that COVID 19 saved more lives than it took?
Seeing all the benefits of the lockdown we must consider observing a month long lockdown every year and allow self healing of everything. All we would need to do is stay prepared for it in advance so that we sail through it smoothly rather than fire fight as happened this year.
Aryan Khatri
