Covid-19 has given us an undeniable glimpse of the future. We must assume we will all fail at some point, and plan accordingly
The virus moves through the nasal passages to the mucous membranes in the back of your throat
Symptoms appear in a median period of five days, but could appear between two and 14 days after exposure
You may develop a sore throat and dry cough
You may develop a fever (usually around 100 degrees F)
This may lead to pneumonia, in which the air sacs fill up with fluid and impair breathing
Your chest begins to feel tight; you have difficulty breathing, or start breathing rapidly
Severe pneumonia may require oxygenation and ventilator support to help you breathe
You may experience extreme fatigue Those over 65 or with more than two pre-existing conditions like diabetes, hypertension or kidney disease, are likely to have more severe symptoms In some, pneumonia may progress to acute respiratory distress syndrome
If someone near you tests positive, call a doctor if you develop any symptoms In case there are symptoms without known exposure, call a doctor if your symptoms don’t subside or if they worsen after a couple of days Your doctor will take a call on testing. About 69% of people who test positive in India develop no symptoms and require no medical attention Everyone with symptoms, however mild, must self-isolate at home for two weeks
Wear a medical mask at all times, stay in an isolated room away from others, don’t share personal items Caregivers and all close contacts are recommended hydroxychloroquine as prophylaxis
Keep a digital thermometer handy to check temperature
Medical staff monitor you for worsening symptoms or signs of secondary infection as Covid-19 compromises the immune system
Moderate cases are discharged three days after symptoms such as fever subside. If oxygen was required, discharge occurs 10 days after it was last required
Severe cases are discharged after clinical recovery and after RT-PCR tests come back negative following resolution of symptoms
There is additional home isolation for one week for all cases, following discharge from hospital
Iam confused about racism. I see it clearly when it is shown to me in a movie or a book — I may even feel indignant and angry. But when the man next to me at a football game refers to the player from Manipur as “that worthless Nepali”, I laugh uncomfortably. Is that a sign of racism? What should one do about it? It’s not like it was the first time I was hearing something like that. In fact, I’ve grown up with it. Playing football through school and college in Kolkata, there were racially motivated epithets hurled at players from the north-east all the time. No one ever said anything about it.
At the East Bengal or Mohun Bagan games at Salt Lake stadium, racial slurs came pouring down from the stands like torrential rain.
Racism is deeply embedded in the Indian psyche, aided and abetted by centuries of caste beliefs that operate on exactly the same principles. Yet we hardly ever talk about this. We hardly ever confront it. We deny vehemently that we are racist. It is so ingrained that we no longer see it. When we do see it, we are confused by it.
Ishant Sharma likely didn’t think it racist when he referred to the West Indies cricketer Darren Sammy as ‘kalu’ in a social media
Almost everyone I know has a despondent narrative to share — about pay cuts, furloughs, their jobs being on the line. This isn’t what life looked just 90-odd days ago. As the ground below our feet continues to quake, how do we plan for the future?
I was first compelled to engage with this question seven years ago, when a series of unsavoury events conspired against me professionally. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that heartbreak followed. Some good counsel later, I got down to reading Managing Oneself, a seminal essay by Peter Drucker, the legendary management teacher, consultant and author.
One of the many pieces of advice he has to offer deals with how to think about a plan to move ahead.
“A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months and still be reasonably clear and specific. So, the question in most cases should be: Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half?
“The answer must balance several things. First, the results should be hard to achieve… Second, the results should be meaningful. They should make a difference. Finally, results should be visible and, if at all possible, measurable. From this will come a course of action: what to do, where and how to start, and what goals and deadlines to set.”
When I think about it now, with things changing every day, 18 months seems too large a window. I’d perhaps review all that I’m at work on every three months.
When you look at things this way, a lot of the stories of people currently staring at a crisis, a lot of the answers to how they plan to deal with that crisis, can feel like they fall short of ideal. Variants include opening a boutique online consultancy or a high-end coaching academy after moving out of Delhi / Mumbai / Bengaluru and into a quieter town.
Asked how they intend to execute these dreams and eventually scale up sufficiently, feeble answers emerge. Whatever happened? Didthepandemickillimaginationandannihilate ambition? Has it and its fallout instilled such fear that we have become afraid to make any real moves?
It shouldn’t. Because if we’re being honest, post some years ago. He was Sammy’s teammate then at the IPL franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad, and clearly a friend. Sammy was apparently called that by many of his teammates. He only just found out, via a Hasan Minhaj video, that ‘kalu’ means black. Now Sammy is angry. I wonder what Sharma makes of it all.
Unlike Sammy, most Black players in India’s football leagues, and all players from the north-east, are perfectly aware of the insidious and low-level racism that surrounds them.
They simply choose to ignore it. At a personal level, away from the public eye, they will sometimes fight back when they feel someone has crossed a line.
Why the silence? The American filmmaker Spike Lee calls it the ‘Okey-doke’. It’s all the tricks, denials, justifications, excuses and general lack of awareness that make the unacceptable, commonplace. There’s a lot of okey-doke in Indian sports.
For many athletes, speaking out can come at a steep price. There’s the thinking that athletes should play ball and shut the f*** up. If you have opinions and feelings, you are seen as a troublemaker. Those in power will do what they can to push you down.
It’s what history teaches us too. The American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos did the Black salute on the podium at the 1968 Olympics as the US national anthem played. They were expelled from the Olympic Village and ostracised in the US. Their families received death threats.
Forty eight years later, Colin Kaepernick, an American quarterback, knelt during the pre-game national anthem to protest police brutality and racism in the US. Kaepernick never found a team to play for again.
I shudder to think of the fate that would befall an Indian athlete were he or she to ever protest a deep injustice by making a statement when the national anthem played. this crisis was a long time coming. Unlike our parents, who were happy to retire after 40-plus years usually in the same job, most of us “knowledge workers” could hear the clock ticking in half that time. One of two things had to happen.
a. We would become bored but not know we were bored, and imagine we were going through a midlife crisis.
b. The industry we were working in would undergo a transformation, and we wouldn’t. Most of us would then be rendered either redundant or on the verge of redundancy.
Yet, few of us invested in ourselves, acquired a new skill. What competency do most of us have outside the domain we work in?
Most of us knowledge workers have only experienced success.
But as Drucker points out, “No one can expect to live very long without experiencing a serious setback… This is clearly an impossibility… Wherever there is success, there has to be failure.”
We live in an age when data exists to predict when we will fail. By way of example, this year, it is estimated that medical knowledge will double every 73 days. That means a doctor will be outdated before they step off campus. To stay relevant, working hard isn’t enough; we must also study harder, and study constantly. This is true across domains. The evidence was right there; one way or another, a quake was coming.
Fresh research has it that a 15-year-old in 2020 must be prepared to work across 17 jobs in five different industries through their lifetime. Are we preparing our kids for that kind of future?
Now, all wisdom has it that failure must be accepted with equanimity. But I refuse to buy into this wisdom. Which brings me to what I believe is the one upside to the pandemic — we have been given an undeniable glimpse into our future.
Rather than accept failure, it is time to shed all narratives about our successes of the past. It took us 10, 15 and 20 years to craft those narratives. It’s time to get to work so we can craft the next 20 years. Our time starts now.