Pandemic: The battle of survival or something else

Gamidalah WarJune 1, 2020

I was asked by a friend to write something about my experience during the current pandemic which has shaken the world. As I am writing this article, many thoughts run into my mind on what I should focus on. There are so many things that had happened during this period of two-three months. We all had witnessed a world which we never had even imagine will exist in this life of ours. Like I said, many thoughts ran into my mind and the first question that came to my mind was – who to blame for this global pandemic? Do I blame China? Do I blame the Muslims who went to the Tablighi Jamaat? Do I blame the foreign returns? Do I blame our government? Do I blame the bats? Or Do I blame myself or my fellow human beings who took this earth for granted? Like you all, I am still confuse who to blame cause as a human being I cannot point a finger toward myself. I believe what everyone is doing is wrong and I am right during this pandemic and also during every other time as usual.

Now, as my heading is ‘The Battle of Survival’, let us all remember we human beings have been fighting the battle of survival from the day first man enter this world. We have been taught from time immemorial to survive in different situations by making ourselves benefitted most from the situations we are in. In class we were taught to get better marks than others, in work we were taught to get a promotion by defeating others, in social life we were taught to shine out better than others economically, politically, etc. So we get the basic idea that, in order to survive, we need to make others bow down to us or follow us from behind. In this race of survival, we forgot what being human really is? I believe all of us had a role to play in creating this pandemic and also in defeating it. The first thing we can do is to remember what is our relationship with nature? We are after all just another species that depend on nature for our survival. No technology in this world can save you from a global pandemic or natural disasters, it can only protect or guide you. No riches in this world can make you immortal; it can only sustain you while you are still here. No education can open your mind to things that nature can possibly do to you for example, Cyclone Amphan wreaking the whole of West Bengal, Odissa, and other nearby states in India and Bangladesh in the middle of a Pandemic lockdown. 

The bottom line is if you want to survive in this pandemic, you better start treating the earth as the one and only home and not as some money and power making industry. Schools and colleges better act as an institution for developing creative minds rather than developing robots that run after marks and some 9am – 5 Pm job seeker zombies, hospitals better act as a house for treating patients rather than experimenting on lives and looting people hard earn money, the government better starts leading their people into developing the entire well-being of the state rather than playing the blame games in between parties and stop filling up their pockets, religious institutions of different faith and communities better stop creating the differences between human being and start preaching about humanity. Last but not least we individual should better remember ‘Man is a social animal’ and by that, we should start respecting and treat each other with love if we have to live as a social being. We should also start respecting our mother nature and give it the best treatment that we can, to save it from dying because if it dies, we are all dying with it. 

Let I end it with the answer to this question – ‘What does this pandemic teach you?’ This is the question I asked all my students. I got many answers but my answer to this question is– ‘this pandemic taught me that Gamidalah War, a Presbyterian Khasi Assistant Professor with MA, MPhil, Ph.D. candidate in Linguistics tag that I am living within this world, is nothing but an identity of another human being who is looking for a chance to survive and not die like others in this pandemic. My identity, my religion, my degrees, my knowledge is nothing compared to the life that God or the universe gifted me and my duty as a human being henceforth is to live side by side with my fellow human beings (barring caste, creed, color, religion) and other living species and to take good care of it as long as I shall live on this planet we called Earth – our only home’.