We live in a world where sleeping under a roof is a luxury today. I felt guilty for sleeping under a roof last night. When I was breathing in the fresh air in my airconditioned room, people in a city across the globe were running away from their villages to survive. Their air was contaminated with toxins due to a malfunction in a factory. Some fell prey to the harmful air inside the house while cooking. Who knew air would be a luxury?
I felt guilty for having a comfortable bed, because humans just like you and I, were shredded into pieces by a train in their sleep on the railway track in a city.
We always have a bigger fish to fry when it comes to humanity. Our ambitions and sacrifices to attain the next milestone are of utmost priority.
The entire world has come to a standstill and we still think it is a cry wolf. Every day we face a new devastating act of nature and all we can do is be spectators in this dance of death.
The army men, police officers, nurses, doctors and supporting staff in the system are not just doing their duties, they are obliging the whole of humanity for decades and decades to come. And how are we rewarding them and extending our gratitude towards them?
By hitting them right at the raw nerve, giving them the virus. They stay away from their families, have given up all kinds of leisure just so we could all live. Its unfair. Its unfair that we can comment on the quality of their work by holding a remote in our hands in the living rooms and gulping freshly made lemonade.
The politicians, the journalists, the privileged are all thick as thieves in times of crisis. When they say the country is falling, its not them falling from their treasures, it’s the poor who deteriorate. They fall from a weakened base to nowhere. And its surprising that the depth of this nowhere cannot be calculated and ground zero is still far away. Talking about discrimination and helping the needy is very convenient after a wonderful golf game or before a soothing spa therapy.
Can we ignore the corpses of the workers who died on the way to their homes? Can we look into the eyes of the homeless in these times when the only place safe is your home? Can we look int the eyes of the doctors and nurses combating with full might and sleeping in the workplaces?
The farmers who barely make their ends meet will sink deep into poverty after this. The daily wage workers are fighting a battle to earn one meal per day. Its easy for us to say that the lockdown should be extended because our safety is important, but what about those who made money each day only to satisfy their families’ hunger for that day? They don’t have savings or mutual funds to take care of them. And if the lockdown is relaxed, they are the most vulnerable to get infected and not be able to get the facilities for the treatment.
Day in and day out, I have realised that poverty is deadlier than Covid-19, it is the deadliest of all situations possible with human race.
It’s like a flip of a coin, but here both the sides mean they lose. They lose their lives.
Corona has taken the world to the Rabbit hole. It has made us all think about what is of prime importance in our lives. We haven’t been demanding luxury clothes, dining in high-end restaurants or playing golf outside. We are living a bare minimalistic lifestyle and trying to find the best with what we already own. But there are people out there who can’t afford to get these basics and fight everyday to feed their kids, and sleep on an empty stomach for days.
Its high time we realise the need of the hour, the need of the generations to come.
