This situation
of Coronovirus today reminds me of the lockdown I experienced once in Mumbai.
It was the time terrorists took over the Taj Gateway hotel, forcing a military shutdown
of the neighborhood which included the erstwhile Hindustan Unilever office, and
the guesthouse where I stayed.
I was stuck
to my room as it was unsafe to even step out, let alone visit office. This was
a time when Skype and Netflix didn’t exist, to allow you to work or
pretend-work from home. Thankfully I had just copied all seasons of Boston
Legal from a friend onto my shoebox size 10gb HDD. And spent the 4 days locked
in at home, doing nothing else but watching these shows.
Times are
different now. The lockdown is for an entirely different reason, and most importantly,
likely to go on for far longer than 4 days.
I can once
again choose to work or be tempted to turn on that TV that is so easily accessible.
But it occurred
to me, that there cannot be a time more important than now to work harder than
we ever have.
It is a
time such as now, when the simple addition of hot water to a pack of Knorr
soup, can provide a meal both tasty and nutritious to compensate for those empty
shelves of fresh produce at grocery stores.
It is this
time that consumers more than ever need to practice personal hygiene through handwashes
and hand-sanitizers.
It is also
the time to bring a smile on our faces with a treat such as an ice cream when we’re
hauled up in the confines of our house.
And if we don’t
go to work at this time, we are at best denying people of their sanity, and at
worst, increasing the queues outside hospital doors.
We’re
always saying how our work is not brain surgery or rocket science, but it is
this time when it happens to be just as serious as all those scientists and doctors
working hard to find a solution to this, because we are the ones who can hold
fort until such a solution is made available en masse.
So I realized
we have to make those virtual meetings happen, take those extra precautions while
making sales calls or running the factory line, but work harder than we ever
have, to prevent an H.G. Wells situation of the War of Worlds happening to our
own species instead of aliens.
It’s time
now to practice what we’ve always preached.
It’s time
now to make a real difference.
