Going out makes me sad

Hi Guys. Hope you are staying at home and taking care of yourselves and your loved ones.

Some of you maybe surprised at the topic of my Blog. Some of you must even be thinking this lockdown has driven Azim crazy. Who wouldn’t want to go out to meet family and friends or just meet human beings other than the family members who you have seen for the last 3 months.

Yes, I maybe crazy, but its true, Going out makes me sad. Don’t worry guys this isn’t about the Government or the lockdown rules or how they are being flouted, this is about how every time I step out of the house for some work and all I can see is how people are STRUGGLING and fighting to survive.

Every few days when I step out all I see is, faces which once showed emotions whether happy or sad or angry are now covered behind masks; Elderly people standing in long queues to buy essentials; daily wage earners struggling; people who used to do odd jobs are jobless; people asking for job (these people are ready to take ANY WORK with whatever money is on offer); Businessmen cleaning their shops - trying to salvage things destroyed cause of the long shutdown or just sitting in their shops with open shops without any customers. This outlook is the ‘new normal’. We generally say that Work from Home has become the ‘new normal’. Is it restricted to Work from Homes? Just take a moment and think - Social Distancing, hiding behind a mask, lockdown, quarantine, sanitisation, and the list shall be never ending, have become the new normal. Our changing ‘new normal’ has been more dynamic than the fluctuations in our stock market (just like the quarantine zone are marked as red zones our investments too are in the red zone).

But is all hope lost? The human race is an extraordinary specie. Today the human race is fighting for our right to live, to exist and we will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We are going to survive (those who would have realised this is the line when the President addresses the fighter pilots in the movie – Independence Day). That was a line in a movie, but today we are turning it into a reality. Our researchers are tirelessly working to finding a cure. But we humans have not left it to our researchers to fight this situation, but we have also taken up matters in our own hands where possible.

With the Covid news all over the media, it is depressing. But when we hear stories of how people are doing extraordinary things just to help other, it is heart-warming and restores our faith in humanity. Everyone has seen how our corporate giants have offered all the help they could – given food to the Corona Warriors, hotels converted into hospitals and isolation centres, private hospitals given to the government to treat patients, manufacturing plants converted to make PPEs and ventilators and the list will be never ending.

We have in whatever way possible contributed to help our follow human beings, without the seeing the religion or caste or race. Every time I see someone begging, I see more than 1 person helping and mostly not with money but with food or milk or even a piece of clothing. We all may not have a lot but we have always been taught to share and the last 3 months have only proved that we are in this together and we will fight it together. As we have heard the armed forces say never leave a soldier behind, we as humans have not left our fellow being behind.

This humanity is not is not restricted only till humans, we have taken care of the stray animals around us (I personally know people doing this). Risked exposure just to make sure these strays are fed and taken care of. These selfless acts of kindness are just extraordinary.

Today while Mother Nature is recuperating from the years of abuse we have caused to it, we humans are setting new benchmarks everyday showing that our humanity has no limits. We should all take a moment and applaud ourselves for our contributions in these testing time because we all deserve it. Thank you for all your acts of kindness. May we get through this soon. Take care guys.