Being a developer in a country like India has its own set of idiosyncrasies that when said out loud will only make developers from a well-developed nation frown. We have our stereotypical stature among the western world where everything is looked from the silicon valley perspective.

For the millennial generation of people in India, it's one of the two options when growing up and choosing our studies: An Engineer or a Doctor.

Now, being an engineer myself, there's nothing wrong about the fact that our previous generation thought about the notion that only being an engineer or a doctor is respectable enough in a country that takes the caste system very seriously. (A topic of an epidemic for another day). Their intentions were, for the greater part, genuine, just not morally right perhaps.

After all, being genuine has nothing to do with being morally right!

It's the clichéd rat race over here. Whether people admit to the involuntary race or not, they sure are a participant. We all are. We all fight over the tiniest of things. Any college graduate; a millennial, is going to be an engineer (or a doctor) or be part of this race. This technological landscape in India is nothing new. It's been going on for years now. And very few are even aware of the impact it is causing. Enterprises are scooping up young people from colleges, train them (Or in a better term - drain them (off their creative, and curious juices)) and make them run the race.

Of course, This isn't about this race - It's about the pandemic. But what good is talking about the pandemic if you don't know how the lives of the greater part of the nation that is unknowingly playing the part of the pandemic that's worse than the Covid-19 situation? I'll try and narrate a chronological version of my understanding of the events that will eventually enable me among most to understand this better.

A normal day, that wasn't as normal as was intended to be.

For me, it was rather a busy day. I was entrenched in work that day before knowing about the national curfew (for a day). A test run. I did not have the time to wade through the stupidities of the news/media to come to a sane, unbiased conclusion about what was ensuing in the coming days: A nation-wide lockdown. The biggest, second(1) mostly populated democracy(2) in the world was about to go into a complete lockdown.

I was at that time, at my brother's place. Nothing seemed off - Of course, I didn't really care about what was going outside. But then the announcement came - A nationwide lockdown for 21 days (We weren't really sure about the incubatory period of the virus then). It didn't seem like much at that time. At least immediately. But once I realized what it entailed, it was already suffocating. "You can't really roam around as you did earlier" - isn't scary precedence, to be frank. But as the story of the boiling frog goes, you start to feel the heat only later on. It kills you from within.(3)

I was in the city. (Chennai, for those who're interested) And that is to say, it's easier to get the essentials in a city if you are technologically well-to-do. We can pretty much order everything online - The groceries, even the cooked food was still available for a delivery, and we could pay almost all the bills online. And my clients at work being global, it was BAU (Business as Usual) organizationally (Which is ironical as I'll explain why later).

A couple of days flew past. We were ordering groceries online, or even if not, we were able to get them within a walkable distance.

A week happened. And that's when I started feeling the pressure that you just can't exactly put into words. The work keeps getting in the way of almost everything. The line that separates the work/life was a very thin one, especially given that I was working in a startup. And now, it was almost as if it is a transparent glass that separates the two. I was getting busier by the day, and work was seeping into the negligible personal life that I had. Add that onto the fact that the number of coronavirus cases kept skyrocketing. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I was not (am still not) interested in the national/state news medium. I've moved onto online streaming services long back which included the news that I consume, or that which consumes me. Even with those on-demand services where you search for what you need, you get recommendations and relevant information which is a double-edged sword. I kept the so-called news intake as minimal as possible from such an on-demand medium. After all, I was fully into the work I was doing.

But perhaps, that's what kept me out of the loop on all the things that actually mattered. The other day, I called a friend and was randomly whining about work - for that's the only thing I tried keeping on my plate. And that's when she brought into the conversation about one of her colleagues who she had the opportunity to work with, abroad. And he just recently died of something. That's all she knew about his death. Or that's all that was communicated to her.

He had been recently moved onsite after about 4 years in the company he worked for, in Chennai. He was recently married and has a child of almost two years old. Whenever his wife used to call him, it's always one request from her side - To come back home and talk to her often, and spend time with their kid. And he always replied with "just a few more days".

But before those "few more days" came to an end, his life did. Amidst all the coronavirus situation, they struggled to get him back for the funeral. And as life would have it, they decided they would just cremate him over there and get his ashes back. Even that meant so many procedures and limitations. I'll give you a moment to think about it.

Can you imagine being newly married and going through a tough stretch of work period in your life to make your kid experience things that you couldn't even possibly imagine? Well, it's pretty common. Especially in a place like India. Parenths go above and beyond to enable their kids to have things that they didn't have, except the ones that the kids themselves would like to have. (At least half of them assume that that's what's right! Wrongly, however maybe.)

Now close your eyes and imagine being in the wife's shoes. What would you tell your kid about his dad? Who you promised would return with so many chocolates and toys in all shapes and colours? What would you tell your kid about when he'll be back to play with him? To teach him how to do things, and be a better person? What would you tell your parents, your relatives, or his'? Even if you choose to ignore all of this, what would you tell yourself in the first place? That your loving, caring, and kind husband won't be back to you? To caress you, take care of you, to spend time with you laughing, irritating, playing with you? The ones he promised will be soon at your disposal? When you asked him that all you needed was him and his time, and his presence, and not all the money in the whole world, or all the luxuries of life, he finally managed to understand the value of being with the loved one. But then... he couldn't. No matter what you say or do, it's just the way it is thereafter. When you finally learnt to love and laugh and enjoy life after all the struggles you've gone through in life and promised yourself that you'll enable a happy and sweet life for your kid. The thing is, you probably wouldn't get it. The pain, or the dilemmas that you will have to go through after this moment. The indescribable comments you'll have to hear, the ethical dilemmas you have to face, and the moral obligation to your kid and parents... none of these will be easy for you to understand.

Or perhaps, imagine the close friend that stood by you during your tough times. The only one who was there for you despite the world being against you. What if he died trying to save a lot of people from this pandemic? He was the very reason why you didn't quit your medical studies. The one who gave you back your purpose of choosing this field. And now as he has sacrificed himself by literally working with, treating, and curing patients who are now able to spend time with their families. But the same people who were proud when he was the only doctor from their village are now protesting and avoiding, for him to be buried in his village. You wish you could just slap some knowledge of biology or perhaps humanity into the ignorant idiots. But you just can't. You had to see him cremated in a small steel cabin with none of his close ones around. To even remeber what he meant to them. All this, because of people protesting in bunches and crowds(the least they could have done was maintain some social distancing) They have no sense of what your friend stood for - Fighting this pandemic.

Or perhaps can you imagine the wife going through the delivery of her baby without her husband nearby? That's what happened to a close friend of mine. Her husband couldn't be there by her side when she gave birth to a beautiful baby because of the travel restrictions due to the Coronavirus lockdown that we're going through.

You get tired. If things like these happen to you or your closest one. There's a beautiful saying that goes by in my native language - "தலைவலியும் வயிற்றுவலியும் அவனவனுக்கு வந்தாதான் தெரியும்" (Which loosely translates to something along the lines of - "Only if you happen to experience a headache and a stomachache by yourself, would you know the pain they cause"). Unless something along the scale of such aforementioned incidents(4) happens to you, you'll never realize what it is that is causing so many unrests among people. It hurts to not be there for your closed ones during moments of births and deaths. It often makes you question the very purpose of your life.

Sure, being dead is worse than being home, we all say now and then. After all, we're the millennial generation. We're gifted with what's more powerful than the computer that enabled Appollo to land on the moon that's at least three hundred thousand kilometres away from where you're sitting/lying right now randomly reading a blog from another person who wrote it with a computer better than the one you're viewing it on. We have no idea how powerful we are. How powerful the technology we wield in our hands. It's easy to put up a status on your social network feed saying, "Stay at home, Stay safe" - Don't doubt me, because I have done that. We're all part of this. Whether the intention of such posts, random musings are genuine isn't the question. It's whether we understand the complications and consequences within all these simple-looking orders from the governments.

There's something that I'd like to remind here - The three deaths of the Mexican legend. Even amidst all these conspiracies, scepticism, cynicism, there's an opportunity to understand our mortality. As the legend goes, there are three deaths a person can go through.

• The moment we realize that we are mortal, that we can die at any moment and that life is not guaranteed whatsoever. Ironical(or poetical as I choose to see it) since it sounds like that awakening to one's mortality is the first death that he goes through.
• The moment that we physically/medically die - the one where we are buried or cremated, the one the world is more aware of, is the second death of the person.
• The third, and the most important of all, when we're remembered for the last time is the death that marks an eternal death of us. There's just void after that.

I strongly recommend you to watch Jason Silva's exposition of the same. It's just lesser than 4 minutes, so please watch it.

And once you go through that, I sincerely ask you to go over this interactive news article from New York Times. I salute whoever was responsible for creating this. It shows something that I don't think I can write and explain with just text.

Having said all of these, My hope is to look at my own life, and how it is as of now. And if you're reading this, I recommend you do the same. I mean, you'd meet around about a thousand people solidly in life, give or take. That is a wild speculation, in fact. So if you die today, how do you think you'd live on as? Can you take a look at the version of yourself that will live on in the memory of those people? I'm young. 25 years old. And if I die today, what is the trail of memory would I leave in the memory of the people I know now? And who'd remember what of me? How would I have impacted, influenced, and improved their lives? If you have read till here, this is what I ask of you. Tonight as you lie down to sleep, take a look at your own life. Imagine you know for sure you'll die in a week. Not simply "Okay what if I die... Ummm? 🤔" kind of thought experiment, but meditate on it. Think through as if you know for certain that you won't be here in a week. The plans that you have made this year. The things you wanted to accomplish. The people you wanted to spend time with. Every. Single. Thing. that you will think if you know you're going to die.

And then, finally ponder over what has this pandemic made you understand that no other thing can? How has it enhanced your own understanding of what's worthy and not so worthy in life. Has it changed yet? I hope it does. It will. And I can tell you that it is not a joke. Because when I did this, I cried. The fear that comes up when you know you have focused on the wrong things in life all along. It's especially very sensitive for someone in their mid-twenties.

Obviously, there's more to it than meets the eyes. I'll be going through the other sides of this pandemic in detail in the coming pages. But until then, we need to understand our fragility. We can all die out of nowhere. We may not see that coming. But if not now, we'll never be aware enough, (or afraid enough) to actually consider what it is that life has to offer by the time we're alive here. Amidst this global crisis, it is more important to understand and admit to the reality that we're mortal than that of whether we'll live to see and accomplish the next day, month, year, or decade. Our life here is uncertain at the best.

But hold on...

This doesn't end here. I have always told that the world hasn't yet seen what's yet to come. And certainly not this pandemic. It's already on the way in causing some of the most intricate rewiring of the economic, political, psychological state to go haywire. We're yet to understand those implications. I'm going to write more about those in the coming days. About how it will forever change our lives. About how it should.

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This is one of posts I'd sincerely hate to use later to say, "I told you so!" I hope I am wrong. 😶 Series: Mark my word. P.S: Let me know if you would like a detailed article on this thought.

A post shared by Rinaldo Rex (@rinaldorex) on Mar 3, 2018 at 5:43am PST

However, I want to assure you, that this isn't as bleak as it sounds. If anything, I absolutely do not want to show just the dark sides of this. I want to show, and prove how it's the darkest before the dawn. Now that I think I have established the importance of the current times, I'll make sure we see the light at the end of this tunnel in the upcoming pages. And it's a bright one at that.

To be continued...