Lessons in Humanity - In Times of Crisis

We in India (as a country) are going through one of the toughest times that I can remember of. The new strain of Covid-19 virus perhaps is many times more contagious and thus everywhere you hear - in friend circle or in the family, almost every home has someone who is infected. Although it is said that this strain is less harmful but just because the sheer number of people that have been affected is very large, the absolute number of people getting into critical condition (even though percentage wise it could be much smaller) is very high.

A true friend is the one who is standing by you when no one else is around - one gets to see the true colours of humanity in these times of adversities.

I am hearing so many stories of people genuinely helping others with Oxygen - one of the basic stuff required as the patient's situation deteriorates and one is not able to find the necessary hospital environment. Hemkunt Foundation's name keeps popping up in this regard who have been constant source of Oxygen to those in need. I also read about people supplying food for free to those who have been affected and are unable to cook. Our own doctor (who has been severely time stressed doing Covid rounds during the day) takes calls in the night to patiently hear about the symptoms and has helped us in timely prescription of medicines that helped us come out of Covid without getting into severe conditions. There are these brave delivery guys who are doing their best to deliver stuff for us at home and help us keep safe. Unlike last time (in 2020), I do see that basic necessities are much more easily accessible on Big Basket and Amazon - at least someone has learnt the lessons and scaled up the necessary infrastructure to cater to the peaks in requirements that surfaced in these difficult times.

Blume Ventures got into action early enough and organised a session with Dr. Charit Bhograj who was instrumental in giving early stage Gyan. I also watched a session with the head of Pulmonology Department at Ganga Ram - such broadcasts of useful information are always useful to get the right information across to a broader audience.

At Zenatix, we did a set of small initiatives to help our own team, including the following:

1. Setting aside a slack channel as early as April 20, where people who have been infected shared their experiences with the medicines they took and the overall experience they had while being infected. This helped everyone get a real sense of what an early diagnosis and early start to medication can be.
2. Create a Covid Task Force wherein a few people were relieved from their regular work and were asked to help colleagues who are affected by cleaning up and sourcing necessary leads.
3. Tagged along for the order for Oxygen concentrators that others were doing so that we can have our own if and when the need arises and also share them with wider community if they are just lying around and someone we know needs them.
4. Created a basic medical kit with the necessary medicines, oximeter, thermometer etc. for scenarios where people get sudden severe symptoms and are unable to source these necessary items.
5. Pushed everyone to register for the vaccination as soon as it opened up - its a separate thing that there are no slots available to get everyone (and their families) vaccinated.
6. Over-communicating (pretty much on daily basis) the importance of keeping oneself and their families safe in these times.
7. Being empathetic to those who have been going through it in their families and giving them all the time they need before they get back to work.

I also know of many founders doing similar or even more stuff in their own organisation, doing their little part to help those who look up to them and showing the true colors of leadership.

While we see the positivity of humanity surfacing in these tough times, we also see the negative side very clearly - Humanity perhaps also shows a bell curve (thats tilted more on the negative side than the positive side). Sad to still see forwards in the local RWA groups where people are believing all this madness is because of 5G and not Covid. For even basic requirements, such as Covid testing at home, it is so difficult to get a good person to visit you at home - even those with whom I have done testing through the year stopped picking up calls at these times. So many fake leads of fraud people are circulating - on Twitter/WhatsApp etc (in the name of verified leads).  I have myself wasted a lot of time (and even some money) because of these fake leads.

It is just scary that for a small paltry sum of money, people go to such an extent whereby they are wasting precious little time left with someone who is trying her level best to source whatever she can for the near and dear ones whose lives are hanging by the thread!

Even some small acts of kindness - simply just calling someone, sharing your own experiences, giving them the comfort that these tough times will pass, helping them reduce the panic that may have been created; go a long way in these difficult times.

Bring out the human in you - these are wartimes! A small time spent by you doing the right things can possibly save someone's life somewhere - there is no bigger contribution than this one! We do not get so many opportunities in life where small acts can result in very big impact - take the most out of this situation; do your bit and you will feel happy when it is all over and you will look back at these times.