Disaster

Hi! You! The IT guys! How many times have your QA pass programs failed on production? Disaster Recovery Drills are conducted? Yet how many Severity 1 issues do you have to tackle every year? Some of them customer facing and impact business? Thought so. This has happened to the best of us. Now imagine this at a National level. Would not developed countries like USA have war gamed pandemic situations and developed reactions to various scenarios? Yet sadly, today they find themselves at the top of the COVID19 infected countries list.

On the other hand India which lives by the blessings of a million Gods has been luckier – at least till the time of writing. We are a country that gets by with our wit, jugaad and collateral damage. We are also fortunate for the many brave hearts who put themselves in harm’s way for us - our armed forces, our health workers, even the sanitation guys. But despite past experiences we do not plan for avoiding disasters. We react to them. We dine at restaurants that are fire traps, carry infants on bikes, excavate sand from river beds and don’t even buy life insurance. We have the belief that an idol on the dashboard and the mirchi nimboo off the mud guard is good enough to protect us from rash driving. A large part of us come out unscathed but there is often some avoidable collateral loss. 

Compare this with Japan who despite their proximity to China has far lower cases. While fingers are pointed at their testing process, many believe that Japanese lifestyle is what partly insulates them from the virus’s deadly onslaught. Japan is a country in which legacy and modernity not only co-exist but thrive. They celebrate their nature. The Japanese take pride in their clean neighborhoods, customer facing employees routinely wear masks and the civic sense of the average citizen is higher than most Asian countries. Japan’s disaster prone geology has ingrained safety as a lifestyle amongst its citizens. The closest example I can think of from an Indian context is Kerala who with the experience of the Nipha pandemic and two back to back floods has started taking disaster management seriously.

The sau baat ki ek baat – you can’t practice for a disaster but lead a lifestyle that invites it. We are heading towards an age where time between disasters is rapidly shrinking. Top of my head I remember the Amazon forest fires and the Australian bush fires prior to the Corona outbreak. All of these disasters are the result of human avarice. Switching off the lights for 30 minutes during #Earthhour is great for an Insta post but will not help with the energy problem. Teaching kids the importance of switching it off every time they leave the room will. Same applies for water and every natural resource.

Delivering bug free code is also the outcome of a similar philosophy – don’t just test the big releases. Adopt a continuous testing culture.