Opinion

Who’s travelling where?

So no more PCR tests and we are going to travel like crazy. Can visualise it.

It is a new chapter in the pandemic life, one that everyone has been waiting for. So now we have to wear mask only in enclosed areas. What a relief! You can now enjoy long walks breathing fresh air without being worried about wearing a facial mask. Being caught off guard mask-less had been a constant worry and now we can have a deep breath in open air.

But I suppose we are not completely off the Covid-19 protocol and we might still be psychologically lingering around the protocol and may not overcome for a while with the obsession of hand sanitisers and masks.

It might take a while to unlearn the habits we incorporated into our life style all these months or rather two years. It takes 21 days to form a habit, they say. If that is the case, we probably have these habits imprinted in our subconscious minds by now.

Relieved are the frequent travellers who had to go through PCR tests at each port and destinations.

Seeing the exciting news my friend recollected his holiday when he went home and when he had to come back he took the PCR only to find he was positive but without any symptoms. He had to spend money to postpone the return ticket and to make things worse there were only weekly flights. It was an angry week he confessed.

There were plenty of these moments to look back at and with time we will begin to laugh at them. Time always heals and somehow however difficult today is this too will become ‘yesterday’, ‘back then’ and soon enough they become ‘good old days’ filled with old world charm. You will look back with nostalgia and with sadness too remembering all those whom we lost and the ones who struggled during the pandemic.

What we learnt are important lessons in life and it was universal. But just as we are hoping to reach normalcy there are new man made crisis.

To this my friend again said, there have been always conflicts and it is just that it is being noticeable now. The conflict hot spots continue to melt under pressure and children continue to suffer without a foothold on education.

Some might say it is fate and push aside the topic, but the reality is that a portion of the world’s population is growing up without learning tools and education, without the importance of empathy, for how can they when all throughout their life they do not experience compassion?

Then again there are parents who could tell them about how the past used to be, the values and let them take a look at the key to their house(which used to be theirs), which they hope to open their door with — once again.

And to them travelling might not be an option and for a long time to come until and unless we think differently.

So could it be that the pandemic was an exercise for us to practice empathy?