What is Essential?

Anil lives in a high-rise building in Bangalore. He is in his mid-50s and was recently made redundant from his cushy job of 20 years. His company is downsizing because their business in India is nearly shut – they are not into the ‘essentials’ category, after all!

As we marketers like to call it, Anil will need to repurpose his existing skills and make himself useful again in the new world order. He is choosing to spend his time helping upcoming companies in his industry in South East Asia & Europe – there is a huge demand for people with his experience in those markets right now. Since he has never worked from home before, he does not have a suitable space that he could use to run his video meetings from. If only he could order a desk and a chair and other accessories to create a professional-looking working corner for himself in his own home right now, he could get back to working again. Amazon & Flipkart tell him none of the items he needs are deliverable in his area at the moment.

Priyanka is in a wheelchair. She gets her food delivered but the only way she can make herself a cup of tea is by using an electric kettle. Unfortunately, hers conked off this morning. She will have to make do without her daily cup of tea for a while now.

In 2020, when the pandemic hit the world, a new categorization of things was created – Essentials & Non-Essentials. Loosely translated, only grocery was essential somehow and everything else was not. While that may be the only category we just cannot survive without, it does not make everything else not essential simply by negation. A student may need a book, an old lady might need her socks, a software developer may need a computer and a musician may need to replace her broken guitar string! Who gave us a right to decide what is essential and what is not for every person in the world? As per the definition of “essential” by oxford dictionary, it is something that is “completely necessary; extremely important in a particular situation or for a particular activity.” The keyword here is ‘Situation’. Since no two people’s situation can be the same, their ‘essential’ can’t be the same nor can be decided by others who are completely unaware of the situation in the first place.

In the last 14 months or so, a lot of us have learned to make our living without leaving our homes. Yet, a lot of us just can’t make a living without getting out there. And the first set of people can’t really stay at home either if the second bunch stopped stepping out to do their jobs. For every delivery person who’s off the road, there’s more than one person who needs to go out to look for ‘their’ essential item, eventually putting more people on the road and in danger. And this delivery person is not really off the road either, he is just doing deliveries for a grocery retailer now that his furniture retailer is going out of business. And we are ordering groceries twice a week now that more delivery slots have opened up instead of once in 15 days earlier when we were forced to plan better.

Online is the only way right now for millions of small businesses to keep the cash registers ringing, at least every once in a while. It is also the only reason why millions of jobs still exist and people working them get paid at the end of the month. Doesn’t that Chanderi Silk saree manufacturer deserve to have a square meal for his family simply because his family didn’t choose to manufacture papads instead? Is it the fault of that merchandiser or that a picker in a warehouse that the companies they work for are in fashion and not groceries?

We’ve all lost people we knew in this second wave. Some were really close and some we knew because they were a friend’s cousin. There’s no debate that this disease has had a far-reaching impact on all our lives. In a world where we wake up in fear of finding out that another loved one is struggling to find an oxygen bed and we go to sleep worried if we’ll have our jobs by the end of this month, keeping our sanity is as much of a necessity as our safety. And if ordering that meditation chair or that wall hanging with a positive quote or simply a new pan to try out that fancy dish is helping keep our insanity in check, don’t they all qualify as ‘essential’ items?

Veena’s sister in Europe is getting married next week. They’ve sent her a zoom link to attend the wedding since she can’t travel under the situation, but she is dreading that day – all her pretty dresses are at her parent’s place and she doesn’t want to be seen in her jeans and T-shirt on her sister’s special day. If only she could get that salwar kameez delivered from Myntra right now. If only we’d understand it is ESSENTIAL to keep her sane right now when she is far from her family and these little things are adding that much-needed little joy to her otherwise gloomy days.