India celebrated the win over the pandemic too early with too little. If we go into introspecting it is obvious that everyone wants this to go away. No matter whether it is unrealistic or selfish or a narrative, we just want this to vanish so that we can go back to our past normal and get hold of our life.

Life is that we are now fighting with. The partial Lockdown 2021 is different than Lockdown 2020. The government has become intelligent and is implementing it in phases, the bureaucracy has woken up from its undeserved vacation and suddenly now realizing that they have piled up their work and now have to work in 24 x 7 mode.

The scapegoat is the medical fraternity and we just don’t want them to get tired. We want our life back, in fact, to be correct, we want our lifestyle back and let others be responsible for it. This mindset is what is responsible for our present-day dilemma.

No one wants to leave an inch of their lifestyle. Politician wants their political space to be intact and no matter what, elections are a must! We could not see an ounce of a politician uttering a word about having a staggard election. All were let loose. The narrative was – we have overcome. Unlock to unleash our economy. But the agenda was ‘let us first get elected and then we can think of governance’.

People wanted their life back, I mean their lifestyle back. Swimming, partying, loitering, and hugging are a must. That group selfie is a necessity, the family reunion a must. These lifestyle emotions had cost us the most. I wonder how many economic activities were our focus. Maintaining protocol is a possibility while we are in a professional environment (workspace) but is not possible in a social setting.

‘Health was never our priority, it the lifestyle which we bother the most’

For the time being these waves of infection we are facing, we need a hold on our social activities and concentrate only on economic activities with strict medical guidelines and government SOPs. To stop the pandemic we need a global standard operating procedure and not a local one. Listen to the expert and follow one guru and do not be a local guru.

If we want our sustenance to survive, economy to flourish we need to push the brake on our emotions and avoid striving for our past normal. To do so we need to hug life and not the lifestyle. It is too early to relax.

Are we ready and determined for a pandemic-free world… maybe, maybe not, many miles to go; many changes in our lifestyle to bring…