Be In One's Shoes

We have limited notions of happiness. For us having our own house and living with our family in that house is a reason to give us happiness but Covid has severely impacted many families.

A family in a metropolitan city who were just an upper-middle-class family where the father is in the IT field and earns decent pay. The mother is a digital artist who does freelancing from home and has a son in 11th grade. The family had no fancy dreams other than having a safe income that gets credited monthly, they were thinking of building a small 2-floor apartment with the hereditary money and some savings of their own. Now, they searched for land and bought the property which is close to the schools and offices so that the apartment can have tenants every time. Now, they started building the apartment and all of the savings and hereditary money was put into construction. The apartment starts taking structure and it was around the end of 2019 that corona started to surface everywhere by March 2020 the construction of the apartment was halfway done, 75 percent of the money they had was already used to buy types of equipment and hire people to construct and then lockdown started and everything went into a standstill for three months, no progress and nothing. The father loses his job during the lockdown as the startup he has been working for went under (shut down).

Now, only a percentage of savings and the mother's freelance jobs were available and they have some people working who got stuck here due to lockdown. How would they manage? Son's exams got postponed and there was no news about it but the schools keep asking for money. You don't feel particularly safe and their ridiculous online classes from morning till night as the 12th exam is an important exam in their life according to parents. Govt was not giving any clear answers on what to do with the 12th class people the only thing they said was their exams are postponed. So, now the father had the decision to either stop paying so the son can study next year if things are well or to let him study and try to cut expenses as much as possible. Keep in mind his money is constantly draining as people work for the apartment and run a family and everything. Father being a father lets his son study without making him feel the pressure he himself had in mind to manage the expenses in such a little income.

Slowly things started to pick up by end of 2020 and the father finds another job, the workflow of the mother is declined as companies were shut and there were no contract works.

All their savings are gone in the building and somehow they manage to send the people who were stuck, which was a good thing and now they start earning money but what they earn now is being used to run the family and occasional takeouts from restaurants. The whole family was taking precautionary steps and maintaining the standard protocols of not going to gatherings and meetings and avoiding public places..... everything!!

Now all the money is in the apartment and they can't complete it without money and they were trying to sell the apartment as it was the safest option to sustain and have some savings just in case but you know the people right, asking for low rates to make themselves profit (even at this difficult time).

Slowly somehow they keep building money but you can't possibly build enough money to complete an entire 2-floor apartment within 4 months so in April 2021, now the lockdowns are again being imposed, a lot of Covid cases and the cases have spiked to 2,00,000 cases per day and ironically we were worried when the entire world collectively had 2,00,000 and I know that some people might say because we didn't know previously and now we know. Agreed!

Just try to put your family in this family's place. Imagine what would happen to your family if you got infected with the virus?

Just think about it. Sent a shiver down your spine?

This is the actual situation of many families currently. We don't know who is going through that situation and the reason comes indirectly comes to us as an individual. Many say great changes come from within, so let us start the change by following Covid19 protocols seriously and keeping ourselves safe and healthy.

You can read more of my writings on lockdown and the pandemic situations talking about how it is not going to be the same anymore and who were the real heroes of the lockdown.

You matter. stay inside. stay safe.

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