A Year of Covid

Dear Covid,

I read somewhere that it's been a year since we humans realised that you had become a part of our world. Only you know how long you have been around but well, since we have known you for a year now, here's wishing you a Happy Birthday!

What a fantastic creature you are! You have travelled across the barriers of nature that humans thought only they could breach at will! You have survived extreme climates, adapting beautifully unlike humans who mould temperature and climate to their liking using technology. You have been strangely inclusive by inhabiting all races, nationalities and religions without discriminating. You have brought the most powerful leaders and nations to their knees, exposing facades and peacockery. You have shown us that we are all the same conceited, dim-witted, arrogant minds clothed under different skin colours, facial features, and false identities!

You have mutated and survived. You seem to be here to show us how to adapt rather than force nature to submit to our whims. But we attribute this wonderful skill of yours to your villainous nature!

You have attempted to show us how we all are the same species, the very same chemical product of nature. But we have used you for more divisive politics, racism and mud slinging using our holier-than-thou small minds!

You have given almost everyone a peek into the minds of their closest - a golden opportunity to understand, respond and heal! But well, what comes for free isn't valued!

You have given each and every individual a glimpse into their own strengths and weaknesses. You have been a mirror that shows them what they hide beneath their beautiful exterior - a job worthy of a skilled therapist! Alas! Humans don't digest truth very well!

They say you made people die. They say you decimated economies. They say you increased the hunger in the world. They say you separated families and orphaned the young. Maybe your arrival coincided with all this. But did you do this to us? Or did we intelligent humans do it to ourselves?

We refuse to acknowledge what is so evident! We paradoxically long to "return" to a "new" normal which, in our hearts, still stands for the same "old" normal that is driven by a sense of being superior to all other forms of life and to all other humans!

You did a lot in a year. We wonder how long you will hang around.

I do not dare wish you "Many Happy Returns". After all I am human too.

We are a lost cause, dear Covid!