India is under lock-down from March end, 2020. Unlock 1 has started from 8th June onward. Slowly, we are experiencing opening up of selected facilities. Hence, I thought that may be this is the right time to introspect whether this lock-down was a boon or a curse.....
Let us first evaluate the situation under which lock-down was implemented.
During March end, Covid was spreading its tentacles worldwide. Parts of Europe were badly affected with number of covid patients multiplying everyday, thereby sending a shiver down the spine of all across the globe. The theory that was coming out was that Children and elderly people are more vulnerable since this virus affects those with lesser immunity. Governments across the countries were clueless and was trying to find solution thru lock-downs.
While talking about India, we will have to take into consideration that Indian population is multiple times larger than any of the European countries that we spoke about earlier. The fear with India was that if the pandemic spreads like the way it was spreading across Europe, then the entire health infrastructure may collapse. Hence the immediate solution to stop the spread of the pandemic was Lock-down.
Well, multiple debates can be started here -
1. Was lock-down the only solution?
2. The surge in the number of population being affected will still continue, then why lock-down?
3. Could we afford the negative impact that lock-down will have on Indian economy?
However, this blog is not to evaluate the success or failure of Indian Government in handling this critical situation, but to do a deep dive within self and evaluate whether its a curse or boon for us.
Lets do an evaluation and understand how could have this lock-down impacted us negatively.
Let us first evaluate the situation under which lock-down was implemented.
During March end, Covid was spreading its tentacles worldwide. Parts of Europe were badly affected with number of covid patients multiplying everyday, thereby sending a shiver down the spine of all across the globe. The theory that was coming out was that Children and elderly people are more vulnerable since this virus affects those with lesser immunity. Governments across the countries were clueless and was trying to find solution thru lock-downs.
While talking about India, we will have to take into consideration that Indian population is multiple times larger than any of the European countries that we spoke about earlier. The fear with India was that if the pandemic spreads like the way it was spreading across Europe, then the entire health infrastructure may collapse. Hence the immediate solution to stop the spread of the pandemic was Lock-down.
Well, multiple debates can be started here -
1. Was lock-down the only solution?
2. The surge in the number of population being affected will still continue, then why lock-down?
3. Could we afford the negative impact that lock-down will have on Indian economy?
However, this blog is not to evaluate the success or failure of Indian Government in handling this critical situation, but to do a deep dive within self and evaluate whether its a curse or boon for us.
Lets do an evaluation and understand how could have this lock-down impacted us negatively.
- Economic impact - Job loss, salary cuts, no increments, business shutdown, employees are afraid to come back to work and hence the entrepreneur is not able to chalk out a plan to restart and many more.
- Mental Impact - with work from home, the workload has drastically increased for people and have impacted their personal space. Also, being confined within their home have resulted in increased stress level and have also brought in certain level of discomfort and may have resulted in depression for few.
- Physical Impact - whenever we are working in our office, there are certain environmental support that helps us maintain the physical balance. This include the chair that we sit in, the positioning of the laptop, the frequent breaks that we take and the physical movement that happens while bringing that much required coffee from the pantry. During work from home, depending on our home infrastructure, we may not be able to get all the physical comfort and hence may affect the health over a longer time.
But, lockdown did not bring only negative impact on us. There are lot of positives too.
- Increased family time - Do you remember the last time, when you had lunch and dinner with your family for all 7 days in a week? This lockdown gave us a chance to spend more time with family, communicate with them. Husband and wife, parents and children, grand-parents and grand-children, there were ample time for all to spend time talking to each other. know each other better. I feel thats one of the biggest boon of this lockdown.
- New Learning - This lockdown gave us an opportunity to learn new skills. We had enough time to self introspect and identify the skill, intent, attitude gap and work on that. Dont you feel that lockdown was a boon since it gave us opportunity to develop and bring in a new "ME". On a lighter note, this lockdown gave me an opportunity to brush up my cooking skills and I being a foody found this as a real boon....
- Hobby time - In our busy schedule, we often forget to spend time on what we love to do. Like for me I love to read. Hence, I utilised this time to read as much as possible. During this time, I also discovered my passion for chess and actually spent time playing chess and improving my game.
- Time to connect - In our busy schedule, we get very less time to connect with our friends and families. This was an opportunity and I thank lockdown for providing me the same. I utilised it to the full. Thanks to technology, we actually utilised this time to make 4 grand reunions with all our classmates which were long due for last 2 years.
So, it depends on you whether you take it as a boon or a curse. Every coin has 2 sides and it will depend on us which side we want to see.
Remember, whatever happens in our life is for good in long term. It may create a short term negative impact, but that does not matter, since Life itself is a boon.
