Lockdown Learnings

With the whole world population in some form of lockdown, we are learning more about ourselves and others than ever before. A significant percentage of the population is struggling to make ends meet, and it is our responsibility to help them in any way that we can.

1. Rental cab drivers who were working on a trip basis are left with no trips and saddled with car EMI and their household expenses.
2. Petty shops, ironing people, flower sellers are all left with no business either due to virus fear or no spending by their consumers.
3. Large shopping malls which were employing millions of workers are all dusting away, with no salaries for majority of them.
4. IT employees are either being furloughed or axed from payroll altogether, with the remaining employees on eternal fear.
5. Farmers are left with fewer people to work with, and no reliable cheaper transport for their produce.
6. Saloons and beauty parlors are operating with bare bone capacity. Touch is their service, and with the virus, touch is harmful, their lives are at stake.
7. Manufacturing is at standstill, with fewer plants and fewer workers operating. Sales are down through the nation and world.
8. Doctors, nurses, and sanitation workers are working more hours, more danger, and less protective equipment. They are the frontline workers in our fight against COVID-19.
9. Other disease people like blood pressure, diabetics, dialysis patients, cancer patients, blood transfusion needy are all being sidelined due to more priority for the virus.
10. Vaccination for kids are being postponed, leaving them exposes in these summer times
11. Kids are being locked down due to the fear, and are developing allergies, and sunlight starvation.
12. Elders who had their dosage of sunshine are being left to fend indoors. Their only entertainment seems to be endless coverage of the virus.
13. Film workers and TV serial employees have been without any work due to the restrictions. They will resume their work with reduced capacity and adhering to strict enforcement.
14. Metro train employees, airline staff are all in lockdown, tough to fathom if employees not working are being paid their salaries. All of the people have rent to pay, mouths to feed.
15. Migrant workers who were working in different parts of the nation are the worst affected due to the loss of their livelihood. Adding fuel to fire is their ill-treatment and lack of timely transport facilities to their hometowns.
16. Orphanages and old age homes are starving for volunteers and donations in this time of the pandemic.
17. Movie exhibition halls are a feeding ground to rodents now. Staff manning them and hundreds of movies are stalled for release, generating millions in losses.
18. Temples and all religious places of worship have been closed. The hope and confidence for millions of devotees and livelihoods for thousands of them are gone.
19. Thieves and looters who had a field day for their bread, during people's movement are stuck at home, with no one around.
20. Millions of shops from clothes, hardware, fancy stores, tea shops, automotive shops to general merchandise stores have downed their shutters, leaving their workers in the lurch.

I sincerely hope this pandemic comes to an end soon, for all of us to breathe a sigh of relief.

Hope is not the best of things, but sometimes it is the only thing….