Firstly, my congratulations to those of us who were able to cross over 31st Dec, the end of an ill-fated year that was 2020. My sympathies with the families of those who didn’t. I hope and my prayer is that we remember the past year as the year of pandemic but not as the ‘start of pandemics’.
History of the technology world will record 2020 as the year when contact-tracing got deployed on a global scale. Whether this ability to track the movements of each person will be good or bad for us, only time will tell. Remember the natural progression to this phenomenon was the proliferation of mobile phones to an unprecedented number of individuals on the planet in the past few years.
Technologically we have also evolved into a new era, the era of working remotely. Whether it is education, medicine or business, we are now getting into the habit of working remotely. If it continues, this new set of norms may help mankind immensely in various ways such as reduction of traffic, better environment, more productivity, and other such benefits. But if taken to an extreme, it can also become a curse wherein due to immense fear, humans may stop meeting each other. We should stay wary of turning human contact into simply machine or robot contacts.
Finally, I would remember 2020 as the year when 80% of the have-nots are starting to take a stand against the 20% haves for not to make any laws against them. In India in the background of tough competition and reducing profits in consumer goods, an attempt by the corporate sector to take over the most wide spread human activity of farming, the newly formed farm laws made in the favor of corporates are receiving a tough opposition by the 70% population of India who are dependent upon farming. It will be interesting to see whether the poor will be able to retain their independence or end up as slaves of the corporate.
On a personal note, 2020 was a year of transformation for me. I realised the virtue of slowing down, taking several steps back from the consumerist rat-race, contributing towards creating a better society, and how to help those in need. It gave me the gift of time with family, and with myself. More than that, it gave me the gift of service to all those who are around me. to the community around me. And isn’t that a real blessing? I am sure each one of us got blessed in similar or better manner, and that is what 2020 was meant for.
