Curse of the 20's

Curse of the 20's, sounds so funny and almost like a childs superstition when you say it out loud... but honestly, as i sit here in my room i ponder whether fate does have something to do with it?  in the 1620's and the 1720's were both years of plague and the following was cholera and spanish flu, as for this year i don't really need to explain what's going on to you. that's just boring stuff that everyone knows anyway. I'll try and talk about a couple of things I wanna address with each thought ending a sub paragraph of sorts. 

I'm not bringing up the basics about how or why, we ended in this pandemic (an overused word in my humble opinion). To be honest, the first thought that came to my mind was the butterfly effect, which in simple words is when a small action sets off a chain reaction in motion that leads to change of astronomical proportions. It's kind of fascinating how one person eating an uncooked meal leads to such a disastrous event. Almost makes me feel like how much ever you prepare and get yourself, there isn't really much you can prepare for someone else's actions. Moreover, it made me second guess my every move and I was left wondering which action of mine would cause the next big disaster, but like I said nothing we can do will prepare us to ready up for, or even anticipate a situation like this. 

Now I might get a little business minded here, but hear me out before you skip it thinking you've already heard about the crash of the economy. See, thanks to this lockdown I've started going to my father's factory and getting to understand the working of my family business. For all my observations, what surprised me the most is the lack of available labour. I'm not talking about the office blue and white collar jobs, but rather your basic factory workers on wages. see you'd think in a situation like this, the workers would be most happy to sit and collect a paycheck for free... but no, they're jumping at the first chance to return home. I get that they have families to look after, but there's not much that they can do. Besides don’t they need the money now more than ever? How long do they plan on living off of reserves of cash (not too sound too harsh, but they're gonna need all the money they get) and once they go home they don't have to be paid by the company anymore. see, the worst part is the pandemic as far as the economy is concerned, I don’t think it's the inability to complete work, but rather the unwillingness of the labourers to work. which has cost the production at least half if not all. The mind of the labour is something  that has affected everyone directly or indirectly, and the mind of the labour is one that truly baffles me.

My third angle on this topic is based on a very popular saying "be careful what you wish for". All the people in my social circles have at one point or another fantasized about just sitting at home for a month and wanting to do nothing. I find it almost funny now when everyone is desperate to go back to normal lifestyles, guess the grass always is(not) greener on the other side.I guess what humans truly desire, is just the fantasy of what they don't have, even if it in actuality would be a huge hindrance to a comfortable life, or maybe it's just that the thought of a utopian future keeps us going. 

I tried to keep the theme of this different from what a "typical" blog on quarantine or lockdown would be, and find aspects that I thought were intriguing and out of the box for you to ponder, and form your own opinion about. I guess just a little food for thought.

- Pratyush Bokadia

by Chandni Gala