As the COVID-19 pandemic still rages on globally with more than 20 million cases and close to a million casualties, in stark contrast to the stats presented just a few articles back, with travel restrictions still getting more and more stringent by the day, even after nearly half a year of lockdown, its surreal to think that we are still not out of these apocalyptic woods yet. As educational institutions, movie halls, adventure parks and other public places continue to remain closed here in India, masks and sanitizers have become part of our daily must-haves. A particular section of your brain is dedicated to round-the-clock surveillance, tracking every touch your hand makes and all foreign objects that enter your home. In this new normal, for those of us who have been fortunate enough to evade the virus till now, life is at a complete standstill for most, while others move ahead at a snail's pace at best. However, I am simply thankful for my family's well-being.
In these grim times, when we are all trying to find a glimmer of light in the perpetually darkening skies, I initially took to active blogging to keep myself engaged, penning down more articles in a couple of weeks, than I have in the entirety of the past few years. And while I managed to carve out many innate thoughts I had been having lately, I don't believe in forcing articles. As this blog deals with facts rather than fiction, with every piece having a bearing on reality, I stopped writing when I ran out of anything substantial in my opinion to put forth for the time being. Moreover, I have realized that it is not necessary to always have an opinion on every single aspect of this world. For example, if we talk about preference of a certain political ideology, something I haven't touched upon in this blog till date, democracy has its positives like the all-important free voice of the people, and at the same time some negatives too, including the case where your interests are at odds with those of the majority irrespective of whether the majority is logically just, keeping an overall progressive outlook, or not. Similarly, while communism aims at widespread universal social welfare, it has an absolute rule over the law, without any opposition.
Nonetheless, what one must really keep in mind is that the extent to which one matters, depends to a large extent on the individual himself. Either you mould yourself and your surroundings in line with your needs or else others will surely do it for you in line with theirs. I'm glad that even in these trying times, I was able to go through with one of our family's major financial goals, buying our second car, welcoming our Ciaz's big brother, the MG Hector, into our family a few days back. Booking the SUV on the day the first lot of the French Dassault Rafales arrived in India, and getting it delivered on the historic day of Ram Janmabhumi Pujan, the Hector will truly always hold a special place in our hearts! Extending our gratitude to both our families, my wife and I would like to convey our hearty thanks to all our well-wishers for their blessings. Looking forward to a lot of road trips with this beast, we sincerely hope the good things soon return to the way they were in the pre-COVID 'era'.
