Dear All,
I’ve been given this chance to reflect on my life story and my experience of this worldwide pandemic that has been going on for more than a year.
To start with, I would say that at the very beginning when I came to know about this virus, I was sitting in front of the television and all of a sudden a news pops up saying “Corona virus reaches Pakistan”. I gave it a big ignore at that time having no idea that how this will affect our everyday life. But as the time went by the cases started to soar higher and higher. only then I started to think of it on a serious note. I had thoughts otherwise. I thought that this was some sort of a political propaganda not until the government’s official notice about the first lockdown in my area came. I was then sure that covid really exists but the people in my town were not aware of this due to the backwardness. I live in a small town in Abbottabad with not more than 4000 local residents . Even tough it is less populated area yet the number of cases began to add up everyday this was because of the negligence of people as well as tourists. Then the Authorities imposed lockdown which proved to be beneficial to stop the spread of corona virus.
Lockdown affected us financially quite severely. My father runs a shop, which was closed for several months. As we were going through these crises one of our family member got positive for corona virus. It was a crucial time for all of us. It was an unfortunate and unwelcoming experience we had to face a lot of hardships both financially and physically, as nobody came out for our help, everyone was just scared to death. It was all horrifying, I couldn’t sleep for a week straight. But a ray of hope emerged in the form of a selfless Doctor may Allah grant him even more success in this life and in the hereafter.
To overcome all the previous mistakes we made we took extra precautions by isolating ourselves and strictly follow SOPs. And to overcome the emotional damage I started praying five times a day. I referred to many spiritual and Islamic books and no doubt the Quran this really help me to overcome my depression and that was the turning point of my life. This pandemic made me the strong man that I am today. It taught me patience, it gave me mental strength to overcome the big hurdles in life, it taught me how to manage a lot of things at once.
My biggest fear till now is the extreme widespread of this pandemic in Pakistan the same virus badly hit countries like china, Italy and India. But at the same time I’m hopeful that one day all of this will be over and done with and we will start living normally back like we used to live pre-pandemic.
Post pandemic, the education system and the economic system of Pakistan needs a desperate revival and I think proper management and smart work needs to be done by the higher authorities to bring about this new concept of e-learning more into our society as I think e-learning is a more efficient medium of learning in terms of ease, security and safety of individuals. Students tend to create more efficient ways to do things while in their comfort zone. We now realize more than ever how the world is a global and virtual village and the perks of living in an age of technology. We can enhance the digital skills of our people introducing them to the concept of cryptocurrency even during the pandemic and post-pandemic. This would help break the shackles of the economic problems that our third world is facing and it would bring a much needed solace into the lives of the masses.
Abdul Wahab Abbasi
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Aero 19 -A