As a kid, like any other one, I would look up at the night sky and imagine myself floating amongst the stars. This little fantasy of mine made me feel so different, it made me feel free, it made me feel strong and its vastness made me so hopeful. As I grew up, this silly ‘happy-place’ fantasy got pushed to the part of my brain that stores episodic memories. Eventually, I started forgetting how it made me feel, and soon after moving to this city, it disappeared completely. And this is Mumbai, we have dreamy, starry eyes, but empty, polluted skies, right?
Two weeks into the lockdown, lying on the roof, under the night sky looking at the stars, all of it came rushing back to me. I felt the same or maybe even better because it’s Mumbai! I COULD SEE STARS IN MUMBAI
At that moment, I felt SO hopeful about everything but mainly about this pandemic. Within a few seconds, I started to look at it differently. I began to feel this has a purpose: HOPE, hope is the purpose.
This pandemic will always be remembered as something that enabled so many of us to reorder our lives for good. As unearthly as the situation is right now, we know we will beat this virus and emerge victoriously. When this sandstorm settles and our masks come off, we will look at everything differently, feel differently and live differently.
Be it finally learning how to paint, finishing that book you started months ago, following a new workout schedule, or even looking to the future and planning a start-up, know that everything you are doing right now is not merely a distraction from the surreality of the situation. You’re doing all of this because, when life gets back to ‘normal,’ you don’t want to be the same person you were, you want to be that person and MORE. You want a new, better ‘normal.’
This collective effort of changing ourselves for the betterment of our present & future helps me in believing that there is so much more humankind is capable of doing if we are not afraid to elevate our expectations of ourselves and the world.