It seems strange to write after 5 years. 5 years. 5 years too long. 5 years too short.
I don't really want to write now. But given that we are in the middle of World War III, it seemed quite necessary to mark this point in history.
Today I am alive. I may not be in a year. I mostly will be in a year. The world is in a turmoil like never before. As I write 1.3 Million people have contracted coronavirus (covid19) that we know of, 75000 dead that we know off, and another 45,000 in critical state - likely to die as well.
Countries are crippled - Italy, Spain, and US (with New York). Without lockdowns, cases rise again. Unless we go to zero or come out with a vaccine, 2020 and 2021 is a disaster for humanity and a big win for Mother Earth.
I don't know. A part of me, wants this over with. I want this to end immediately and us to get back to our consumerist, gas guzzling, aggressive, manic quest for expansion given that I am a hedonist who enjoys the money, the ability to eat out with family and friends, travel the world -see new places, go for morning runs, and binge watch sappy movies and shows.
And then there is this other me - the voice in my head, that says, we had it coming. Did we really think that nature was going to let us rape her unendingly. Something had to give and this was it. Either from this crisis, we learn to respect the need of all creatures great and small of this planet, or die. Could this be our meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs? They were on a rampage raping the planet back then, as we are right now. When I read of how the air is better, civets in Nilgiris, humpback whales happier, as a matter of fact, cute and tiny birds happy and chirping in my own balcony, I can't help but think, as a race, we don't really deserve this gorgeous blue marble. Can we learn to in this rampage of a tiny strand of RNA learn to change our values and our living to one more sustainable, or, will, we head back to hedonism as soon as it's over?
I don't know. No one is really getting anything right. Nobody heeded Wuhan's warnings to the world and pandered to China's call to not shut the movement of Chinese into the rest of the world. We did, and now, the human population of the world is in terrible trouble. Just when it seemed like lockdowns could be eased, South Korea, Taiwan and China are seeing another small wave of cases. We are now two weeks into lockdown in India and at less than 5000 cases and a population of 1.3 billion we are at the beginning of it all. We don't necessarily have the facilities to handle it. Some isolation facilities can apparently scare some people into hiding/ committing suicide - it's scary when you here those stories. I wish all the facilities were like Maneswar, Kerala or Karnataka. Apparently, they are good.
Well, let this war continue unfolding. I need to be strong, be healthy, and continue doing my bit to alleviate the suffering of people and animals in this time of distress, through my only means of helping - contributing monetarily to different causes.
