Monthly Archives: August 2020

The present times are unique in history because of the almost endless and all-pervading ambiguities the pandemic has generated

No matter how one adulates the ability to face ambiguity and no matter how this capability is seen as the fundamental characteristic of an innovative person, the truth is somewhat removed. Whereas dealing with uncertainty raises resilience, like in everything else, one could well say “thus far and no further.” Equivocacy ensconced in certain clear-cut parameters works. Ambiguity as a constant and dominant feature of life can be corrosive. The present times are unique in human history because of the almost endless and all-pervading ambiguities the pandemic has generated. One does not know where the virus originated from or the logic of its transmutation. One does not know much about its antidote or how it could strike. It is true that much poetry has been woven around the theme of subtle, calculated or not so calculated ambiguity. That kind of romanticised writing is conspicuous by its absence in the present case.

By a rough estimate, there are about 250 million children worldwide who do not have access to schools. For them, staying away from formal education was a no-choice situation. Of the children […]

One wonders if people are suffering more from being infected by Corona or from almost driving themselves over the edge by the fear of the virus

One is living almost cocooned in an equilateral triangle. One arm of the triangle is the terrifying Covid-19 situation, the second arm of the triangle is an economy in a tailspin, with little understanding of how deep the dive is going to be or how it can be brought under control. The third arm of the triangle is made of the travails and trials of an ordinary life. The Covid age — for want of a better phrase — that the world is currently passing through, is known to have just as much of an impact on the psyche and lifestyles of people as the Coronavirus has on the human body. How long can one survive in a bottomless pit of anxiety is a question to which there can be no definitive answers. Even history is silent on this very vital issue of human endurance.

One wonders if people are actually suffering more from being infected by the virus or from almost driving themselves over the edge by the fear of being infected by COVID-19. The governance […]