Page 16 - Beyond COVID-19

“Oh Dear, Home”

or “Oh, Dear Home”

hey say home is not a place, but the people you love. With the
Tpandemic looming over our heads, we associate home, be it the
place, or the people, with “ugh!” and “again?”.

The older generation used to talk down to the younger generation
by saying kids nowadays know nothing about what it is like to have
a childhood running around in playgrounds instead of being glued to
electronic devices. Confined to a teensy apartment amid the chaos, we
can only feel sorry that there is no compensation for children’s loss of
play time in parks.
For we students, the struggle is real. When familiarising ourselves
with online teaching, we are adapting ourselves to typing and keeping
our mouths shut. We try to start a conversation with peers in Zoom
breakout rooms, only to receive a long silence in return.

Working from home, though it implies an increase in family time, is
no better. All the efforts women have made to promote gender equal-
ity might go to waste, as chores and burden of care have once again
been laid on women’s shoulders. The pandemic has made people stay at home longer or even stuck
at home.
It is hard to say which is scarier. To be struck with an illness that
risks losing your life? Or to be stuck at home and risk losing your
mind? Coronavirus is fearsome, but let us not forget isolation, too, is
just as fearsome. The elderly are experiencing loneliness like never
before. They cannot do their main pastime of strolling. They have no
volunteers to pay them a visit. They can go for days or even weeks
without talking to anyone.

Being stuck at home is not always rainbows and butterflies. But as a “
half-Indian, when I take a look at India, I see millions of migrants pull- What COVID-19 has taught us
ing off a staggering exodus simply in attempt to return to the place
called “home”, costing their health and for some, their lives. What is that being with our loved
COVID-19 has taught us is that being with our loved ones is already a
luxury. ones is already a luxury.

By Kajal Aidasani

Breathe Through Our Masks: Revalue Our Life

e have been living with COVID-19 for more than a year. It exactly, I hope it is not another time of living aimlessly.
Wstarted with a lingering anxiety deep down to now, a sense of
numbness. I see people care more about politics, pay more attention to
injustice, and get more involved in climate issues during the
Time changes many things, and I feel this deeply during the pan- pandemic. When humans are so vulnerable to the virus, some of us
demic. When distancing myself from the life I am living, I notice how learn to look at things from a higher and wider angle.
adaptive we all have been.
Advancement of online technologies has accelerated during
Throughout the pandemic, I get to rethink what happiness is and the pandemic, but I guess it is important for us to slow down and
how one can achieve it. The pandemic has caused lots of incon- rethink. Through this, we can revalue what is truly important, con-
venience. Most people constantly think about travelling or meeting tinue to live with resilience, and breathe through the masks.
friends, the lost happiness we used to have.

But the thought of “then what” occurred to me.
Happiness is a state. After travelling and meeting friends, compen-
sating by enjoying these activities that I was once refrained from,
what is next? Although it is impossible to know what comes next By Lesely Lam