Page 10 - Seniors Today December 2020
P. 10
First Person
Ephemeral Gloom,
Eternal Bloom
In the wake of the Covid pandemic, we all have been left to hope for the best
while bracing for the worst, writes Nagesh Alai
I had literally welcomed 2020 from the top search for discovery of a vaccine, which has
of the world – by summiting the 12,000-feet as yet been elusive except for claims from
snowy but sylvan Dayara Bugyal (means the likes of Pfizer and Serum Institute and
“lush meadows”) in the Uttarkashi district several others. Some governments like the
in Uttarakhand. The trek from the plains US and Spain have been brash and blasé S Kumar
to the peaks was an immersive experience resulting in lakhs of casualties while others
of bounteous nature at its best, and the like India have been more proactive albeit
resilience and fortitude of the people who unthought and kneejerk leading to spikes
live it out in the tough climes of the heights. after early stem, as testing increased.
Whoever thought that the climb down from
the lofty peaks to the lowly plains will in a Grinding halt
matter of few months expose all of us and Daily wage earners were the worst
the world to the pathogen of the millennium. affected, with lakhs forced to exit from
A microbe invisible to the naked eye came urban earnings and migrate back to rural
knocking, laid waste to lives and livelihood, poverty. If not for the munificence of the
and transformed for ever the way of living people and government measures, albeit
and working, as we have all seen since belated, lakhs would have perished.
March when panic, pandemonium and Industries like hospitality, entertainment
pandemic coalesced to close down countries and travel collapsed to moribund anaemia.
and economies. The quest for a cure led to a Infrastructure industries came to a grinding
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