Dear 2020, Here Is My Message To You

|By- Sanika Ghag|

Back in 2012, everyone in the world believed that it would be the Big End, to such a degree that films were released about the disastrous end of the world. While some predicted an alien attack others predicted natural calamities like earthquakes or tsunamis would consume the Earth whole. Who knew that 8 years later, all it would take is a microscopic organism to put a lock on the whole world. Literally and figuratively.

Well, to be brutally honest, 2020 wasn’t off to a great start either. From the rumours of World War 3 to Australian bush fires depleting the ozone layer to a very real possibility of an asteroid attack, we thought nothing could get worse. That was of course till the Coronavirus hit our countries. The world was (and I guess is still) a little shaken by what’s happening across the globe. Never in a million years would we have imagined being cooped up in the confines of our homes and watch as the virus continues to consume and devour the whole world. One would think, for a technologically advanced generation as ours is, we would be prepared for the said pandemic yet as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to annihilate our cities and wear our men down, we sit and anticipate the production of a vaccine to stop this destruction.

Mumbai is supposedly ‘the city that never sleeps’. It’s the city where millions of people come to fulfill their dreams. It literally never stops, not in the gloominess of the night or the sultriness of the day, not in the shackles of floods or the trepidation of a terrorist attack, never.

I have never seen my hometown like this. As the Covid-19 outbreak continues to take the city by siege and making it one of the largest hotspots of the pandemic, the city did stop. Roads jammed with traffic and the constant honk-honk of the vehicles are now vacant. The lifeline of Mumbai, its local trains are stranded on the tracks. Shops are shut, shopping malls are ceased operating, theatres are abandoned little warehouses and the city is left deserted.

I remember this one particular day, returning home from work staring at the magnanimous structure that is the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus. Its old Victorian architecture is a piece of brilliance being there for more than a hundred years. I marvelled at his historic beauty for a while only to be shoved away by a horde of people eager to catch the train before it leaves the stop. In that moment, I thought I knew that no matter what happens, the people of Mumbai are never on a break. The trains will always be just as crowded, the roads just as jammed and people are just as busy. Oh boy, was I wrong. Or was I?

Even as the outbreak continues to tear the city apart limb by limb, the doctors and nurses continue to hold the fort. The police continue to be the first line of defence all the while requesting people to stay home and stay safe. The media continues to safeguard us with all the information we need. The bankers still go to the banks so that our finances are well taken care of. The watchmen still guard our societies and complexes, the cleaners still come to collect our garbage and the politicians are on the forefront trying to find ways to win over this pandemic. And let’s not forget the poor souls working from their homes for their individual companies

So you know what? Yes, the city may not be mobile anymore but it hasn’t stopped. It never has, never will. And this just isn’t the situation of Mumbai, it’s same all around the world. You can continue to terrorise our hometowns and force us to sit in our households, but you can never stop us. This world is not that place. We refuse to surrender to our surroundings instead we learn to adapt. We grow, we evolve and most importantly we adjust. The virus may have changed the world and maybe nothing will ever return to what it was but we learn to accommodate. The situation was harder than ever because we lost so many of our own to the Novel Coronavirus, but like I said, in the age as technologically advanced as us, we will find a solution too. We are in this together and so we shall be. In these tough times, more than anything we have learned that the true essence of humanity lies in helping the ones in need.

Dear 2020, that’s my message to you.