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.
Humanity During A Pandemic 