Hashi, (she, her, hers), 35, from Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
What are the most significant changes in your life due to the global pandemic? Time spent outdoors. This part of my life was very active before Covid-19, but after the pandemic, it has significantly reduced. Another transition is having my husband at home 24/7 , We now have time for long conversations.
What are you most grateful for despite being a part of the global pandemic? I’m grateful that I’ve valued spirituality above all else in my life and that makes me appreciate adversity and see it as a necessary human experience. I’m thankful for family and friends from Sri Lanka. I am also grateful for my husband who is an endearing lock-down partner, and also my fur baby, Ceylon, who has been a champ through this entire ordeal.
What are you most looking forward to after this pandemic is over? I really want to watch a theater production, but I’m not entirely sure if that would even be possible.
Picture by Rwitayan Mukherjee. Location- Ranthambore National Park, India.
Rwitayan (he, him, his), 34, from Mumbai, India
What are the most significant changes in your life due to the global pandemic? The biggest change perhaps is that in my attitude towards life in general. The pandemic truly has been a great reality check that has reminded me and perhaps all of us about our place as mere humans in the greater world order. Each day when I think that a mere virus, something microscopic, has the power to down the shutters on almost the whole human race, I realize that we aren’t really as powerful, as smart or as advanced as we conceive ourselves to be. So that realization now makes me the value of every single day, each moment spent with near and dear ones.
In terms of lifestyle changes and work, for me at least the volume of work has gone up. Working from home is effectively blurring the lines between work hours and non-work hours. It’s difficult to disconnect and disassociate with work when your work station is pretty much, a large section of your living room!
Balancing work and daily household chores is getting increasingly difficult as the lockdown keeps extending. And increasingly, I am finding it difficult to keep myself motivated or hopeful about a future that has a lot of semblances with our old normal.
What are you most grateful for despite being a part of the global pandemic? To be sharing this lockdown with my wife. To be able to function as an effective team, to balance our respective work and our common duties at home. To be able to just be around each other all the time, even if we are on our respective work calls.
In a slightly guilty kind of a way, i am also grateful for the privileges I have of a roof over our heads and enough provisions for essentials and supplies, which can’t be said about so many people across the country.
Am also grateful for all the different examples of humanity helping each other out in these difficult times. Little-big stories of checking on each other or donations and relief packages, if they are being done with the right intentions and a good heart.
What are you most looking forward to after this pandemic is over? To travel home and meet the rest of our families. To visit some of our old favorites – an eatery we are fond of, a theater we loved going to, the lane we loved walking in, and so on. And to travel in general, to all the places we thought we would visit.
Ipsita, (she, her, hers), 38, from Navi Mumbai, India
What are the most significant changes in your life due to the global pandemic? No significant changes as such. But I have been estranged from my father which has been very difficult to handle emotionally. Also in case of any emergency, one really does not know now what to do. If someone has a broken gadget, there is no one to repair; so many people have damaged phones or computers and no means of communication; someone I know has a broken fridge, some others have air conditioners which need repairs. They are all helpless. If someone is ill, even doctors are afraid to call them in. Something you wish to purchase is not always available. It is a very difficult time for all.
What are you most grateful for despite being a part of the global pandemic? Family time, I guess. And the fact that me and loved ones are healthy and still have food on our plate.
What are you most looking forward to after this pandemic is over? I wish to go meet my widower father and spend much-needed time with him. Also I need to urgently visit my recently deceased mother’s home in Kolkata for very urgent work which has been delayed because of the pandemic. This has been deeply disturbing for me.
What are the most significant changes in your life due to the global pandemic? I realized to value life and time. Now we can work from home (work can be done virtually), we have time to do a lot of creative things.
What are you most grateful for despite being a part of the global pandemic? As we are socially distancing and working from home, there is very less travelling. For that reason, the rate of pollution is decreasing significantly. Nature is recovering itself from the damage we made.
What are you most looking forward to after this pandemic is over? I want a world where people will not commit the same mistakes, and will perform some innovative things which will help human civilization from further disasters.
Swetaleena, (she, her, hers), 33, from Delhi, India
What are the most significant changes in your life due to the global pandemic? There has been quite a few significant changes in my daily routine; initially I had a few hiccups managing the daily household chores as well as work but this has become the new normal now. Apart from this, I’m cooking more often, virtually meeting up with friends, and developing new hobbies to avoid \screen time.
What are you most grateful for despite being a part of the global pandemic? To know that all my family and friends are safe in this unprecedented time.
What are you most looking forward to after this pandemic is over? Travel. We had a vacation planned to Iceland in April; I would use the airline voucher before it expires.
What are the most significant changes in your life due to the global pandemic? Work from home (conducting online classes for the first time which was earlier a bizarre concept in Kolkata), life style change to a certain extent (tending towards a more disciplined life), becoming more health conscious and depending more on indigenous foods and recipes, and spending quality time with family members.
What are you most grateful for despite being a part of the global pandemic? COVID-19 has given me an opportunity for self introspection. It has also brought me closer to nature. The global pandemic has enabled me to nurture my old hobbies, sewing, making handicrafts with paper, and cooking authentic Bengali meals.
What are you most looking forward to after this pandemic is over? I am looking forward to a harmonious world in spite of all the differences and oddities. I am hoping for a greener earth where all the living beings coexist peacefully. I am aspiring to live life in the truest sense instead of running after so called ‘success’.
Tishya, (she, her, hers), 34, from Springfield, Missouri, USA
What are the most significant changes in your life due to the global pandemic? I am very lazy and I hate to cook. Under normal circumstances, we had a cook and we also used to eat out like 4 or 5 times a week. I can’t believe that I now cook twice daily. For most of the people, this might be something very normal and insignificant but for me it is a big deal.
What are you most grateful for despite being a part of the global pandemic? I am very grateful that all my family and friends are safe. I am also very grateful that my husband has his job.
What are you most looking forward to after this pandemic is over? Meeting my parents and also having pizza, biryani and phuchka.
What are the most significant changes in your life due to the global pandemic? No student teacher interaction, having lots of time to watch those pending movies, made me a late riser, miss going out.
What are you most grateful for despite being a part of the global pandemic? Learnt that although we humans consider ourselves to be the master of this universe, the real power has always been in the hands of nature.
What are you most looking forward to after this pandemic is over? Meeting friends and going for vacations.
Humanity During A Pandemic 