Flow-chart

Life is like a flow-chart. It begins with how to start it when we are running to crawl then walk. Once we know the magic formula, then we assume that we will go with the flow and escape unhurt. However, if we start getting hurt or punished due to deviating from the predetermined steps, then panic, fear and other problems can quickly seep into our system. This can in turn result in a few people trying to exploit our situation by pitying,  bullying or fleecing us. When fear, greed and other challenges hit us together, only then we realize the importance of preparing a dashboard or a chart of real time updates about the challenges being faced and the possible solutions for dealing with those challenges. When we come out of a torrid trouble by often a hit-and-trial manner, then we reflect upon how we had learnt from our past mistakes or how those wounds continue to inflict on us. Having said that, Covid-19 is not any normal disease because it has the potential to spiral into an invisible tsunami from which not even any combination of human beings or their intelligence can truly define the new normal.

Now I want to make a chart to depict how well we cope with the following new unknowns: 1) how likely are we to contract Covid-19 virus when waiting patiently for our turn to get vaccinated at the long queues in the vaccination centre, 2) whether we can ever find merit in finding the degree of infection in patients who get vaccinated twice, 3) whether we can ever devise a technology to detect a person wearing a handkerchief or wrapping a sari dupatta on his or her mouth masquerading a mask, 4) the number of non-stop numbing hours being put by doctors and health workers who have been treating the Covid-19 infected patients, 5) will the Covid-19 news of patients painfully testing positive finally yield to the balancing act of “negative” upon the tsunami of patients staging full recovery. Even if 300 such patients get recovered on any given day, I can resonate that news with the 300 Spartacans who had successfully kept thousands of Xerxes army at bay in one of the most famous wars.

What the numbers fail to report in a dashboard like Worldometer is the varying degrees of fight put up in a ferocious level as if to deny Covid-19 from breaching their defense. Other features such as the colors of joy, relief, faith or the attritional approach taken during the long quarantine period in their tears does not get captured in those dashboards for Indians. There should be a case for launching such a beautiful and inspiring dashboard.

Finally, with this blog, I pledge the support of everyone to recognize the importance of staying strictly confined to their homes and to believe in scientific research and innovation to pull our way out of the powerful willy-wobbly web that we have created for ourselves. This is a wonderful opportunity to recognize the beauty of diversity among us and to help each other in a selfless way as though we all belong to some part of a communion.