Let us speak today of the impact COVID 19 is having on our inter personal relationships.
let us turn our attention to what COVID is likely to do to us as a race - as a human race.
Pandemics have happened before in human history. This perhaps is the first one that is happening in our lifetime.
Spanish flu killed 50 million population while the Global population was a mere 1.8 billion. It was 182 times more life-threatening than COVID.
Smallpox killed 1/3rd of people it affected and it blinded so many millions. COVID is certainly not so deadly. How is COVID affecting us then?
COVID has sadly claimed many lives, yes. COVID has led humanity to a collective nervous breakdown. Yes. It has broken the back bone of global economy.Yes
COVID has driven millions into financial loss and poverty. But is that all it has done?
COVID has affected the already fragile state of human relationships.
The fact is, that with the advert of social media and the internet based entertainment streaming through phones people were actually alienating themselves from one another.
We did not look so much for our brothers and sisters or parents when we felt bored. We did not meet our friends, family or visit cousins for fun or play.
We were dependent on the crazy labyrinth world of internet. We could get lost in the labyrinth of YouTube or Facebook or Netflix's seasons for hours, days and even weeks.
And COVID has in a sense precipitated that social alienation even further. Fear of the spread of the disease has already taken touching and hugging out of the equation now.
Fearing the spread of disease, today we leave our loved ones alone in some nameless ward in a hospital we have moved away from actually caring for each other.
Even if a loved one passed away, we are in the pitiable condition of sending a WhatsApp message as condolence. We are afraid to wipe the tears of family.
This is not to blame anyone. This is the current circumstance.
But please bring awareness to what is happening to your heart, what is happening to your capacity to love, to feel, to hold another in sadness and to reach out when we need.
At the end of covid-19 for how many ever weeks, months it may last - let the majority of us not have gotten into the habit of crying in loneliness or ignoring each other.
For what is life, if not relationships? Ultimately everything we do can only have meaning, if it can add to the joy and the well-being of others around us.
I say this is to you because every pandemic has left a mark on human societies that almost took a few centuries to erase.
After the black plague people refused to bathe - in fact bathe only once a year or once in 6 months in Europe - somehow believing that water was the cause of plague.
After years of smallpox, parents refused to name their babies after birth. They waited for the baby to survive after contracting smallpox before naming him or her.
In 1901 plague epidemic saw racially segregated Quarantine which long after the disease was gone, lead to segregated towns and communities in Apartheid South Africa.
So be conscious of what is happening inside you and inside your family members.
Create small ritual of love that you will do as a family throughout this crisis. keep the flame of love alive.
Eat together as a family at least once a day.
Meditate together or pray together as a family even if it is 5 or 10 minutes every week.
Within the family hug each other.
And share and listen to the stories and anecdotes from your every day life.
COVID will pass. but remember to emerge as more loving and caring beings from this, than otherwise.