Folks, the world as we know it has changed since March 2020, when the whole world, in one fell swoop, decided to take a break and have a KitKat, as even the Five Star ad-campaign adapted to a similar tag line and chose to ‘do nothing’.

And what a break it was/is! Governments across the world tightened their rears and laid down lockdown rules and India went into its Section 144-mode to curb the spread of the Pandemic.

As the number of infected cases rose, and the news came in about those who succumbed to Covid-19, a section of the world was busy making trending dance videos and dubsmashes.

As amusing as it is, there were these two different worlds that were coexisting and ignoring each other: one, that was working from home, with some of them moonlighting to become mini-celebrities on Instagram; and the other that was filled with the tragedy and the trauma of those infected and those who died.

Numbers came in, in the form of news from everywhere, and the media treated this phenomena like they would report a serious disturbance in the daily weather forecast. But what is not being noticed enough is what has changed because of Covid.

For instance, the number of serious cases in mental health issues has risen due to a constant consumption of watching dark fiction on Netflix and chilling. On that note though, why are all the shows on Netflix so dystopian? And why is the world suddenly infatuated with hopelessness and ennui?

In other news, people have lost their livelihoods. Jobs have disappeared overnight and we are supposed to continue as though none of these disruptions have affected us. How have our lives changed because of the pandemic? Many people who might have been alive did not get the attention or even the permission to be mobile in their own city have succumbed to the restrictions of the lockdown. School children have had the worst time studying from home and not being able to meet their friends for more than a year. Courier boys have lost jobs. And office goers are taking Zoom calls in underwear from the hip down or have unfortunate cooking accidents while making pan cakes buck naked.

As we worry about the infections and the deaths and the recovery rates of the pandemic, we also need to be watchful of how the large-scale of disruption caused by the pandemic may affects our lives. We need to learn to, sometimes, walk off the well-trodden paths to figure out how to bring back our lives to an even keel. As we topple and tumble over the post-Covid times, we need to strive to find the balance that sustains us.