Sailing in the same storm, in different boats

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Two boats sailing in a storm

 

2019. It was the last year you freely embraced someone. The last year you walked down the street and stood for a moment, in the shade of the humongous night flowering jasmine tree that was tucked around on the route to your workplace and smelt the invigorating fragrance of the flowers, without a mask acting as a barrier. The last year you attended a big fat Indian wedding and showed off your new lipstick shade. The  last year  you gave your friend a high five after cracking a hilarious joke in class. The last year you attended a public rally. Think about it. We seldom value little things in life until they cease to exist. It isn't until the moment that we lose them, do we realize the value of these little things in our life.

In truth, I was one of those students who genuinely liked attending school not just for academically enriching myself but, for making memories that I knew I would cherish for the rest of my life. Little did I know in 2019 that, whispering a joke in my bench partner’s ear would turn into texting him/her in the middle of online class. Little did I know in 2019 that, the school assemblies I waited for every morning, the only time I could blatantly gossip with my best friends at the end of the row, would no longer exist. Little did I know in 2019 that, the lunch breaks, the time we all heartily shared our meals, would be the last time we bonded over the baingan ka bharta or the puranpoli that we carried in our hefty tiffin boxes to school. If I did know, maybe I would have lived those moments a little more so I could hug them tight right now. Maybe, I would have been a little more mindful to be  grateful for the moments I was able to enjoy then.

In 2020, the world was hit with an unprecedented crisis. A pandemic that the international community  is still grappling with. A year later, this deadly virus continues to affect all spheres of life. Transforming economies, governments, lifestyles and societies all around the world. In a span of a year, healthcare infrastructures collapsed, economies crashed, unemployment rates skyrocketed. Undoubtedly, the transition to online teaching- learning process, amidst the pandemic, has had a huge repercussion  on the education sector around the world, especially in underdeveloped and developing countries like India. The transition to full fledged digital learning has ultimately led to only the privileged crust of the society gaining access to something as basic as education. In India, while well equipped schools found it easier to transition to an  online teaching-learning process, the schools in rural India found it almost impossible to shift to online mode. The educational infrastructure in India, notably, isn't well equipped to aid this shift. Unsurprisingly, numerous school going and college going children have had to unwillingly drop out.

Time and again, I listen to my house help’s children wail about not being able to attend their online lectures because of not possessing a gadget or the poor internet availability in the area of their residence. I see a glimmer of unparalleled joy in their eyes when they talk  about the time they went to school and learnt new things. In a jiffy, the joy of bygone school days transforms into sorrow as they realize that they would not be attending school for an indefinite period of time. I see their sorrow as they realize that the school playground was the only place for them to forget about the hardships they had to endure in life and live in the moment as they played their favorite sport. I see them recount assemblies as the time they wholeheartedly prayed for all their dreams to come true. I see them imagine school as a place where they could heartily devour the ‘mid day meal’. For them, school wasn’t just a place to learn, it opened a whole new horizon of endless dreams they could conquer, making living in the moment far more congenial. For them, school wasn't just a building (In rural areas, a mortar and brick hut with a flickering bulb and scraped blackboard), it was a wonderland. A wonderland that they couldn't imagine would evanescene into online classes.  This is a tale of thousands of school going children around the world.

On the contrary, time and again, I hear my friends gasconading about bunking online lectures to binge their favorite television show or pranking teachers by posing as a hacker in zoom classes. Today, all the school going children, irrespective of their economic status are losing out on the precious moments of their school life. However, the plethora of accessible education has already narrowed down to a smaller proportion, today. Where one group of students is getting access to education but losing out on the moments that make schooling fun, the other is cut off from both the access to education and the cherishing the moments in school.

No, we are not sailing in the same boat.

We are sailing in the same storm, in different boats.

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