I emerged as a new species after the pandemic. I’m no more human- like.You might be thinking either I’ve finally lost my mind and believe I’m spiderman or some zombie who survived the series ’All of us are dead’. Don’t stress I’m neither of them. A new organ has ballooned within my insides.

“Find positivity in the worst of times”,this motto, is that essential organ that I now cannot live without, keeping it healthy by having as less intake of negativity as possible.

Reading the headlines of ‘Mumbai Mirror’,

“Mom,There is some virus that extremely fatal in China. But they built quarantine hospitals within only a day. That only they geniuses are capable of. This really shouldn’t spread to India. It will be a mess”.

This was my human self completely unaware of how preposterous my statement was.

The first time I got to know the severity of covid was when my elder Sister informed that her college had sent the students home.It was 100 cases that time.A laughable amount In today’s age.I was really excited cause my best friend was coming home.Back to the late night talks,PS4 racings and irritating her.So it was me, my sister and parents living under the same roof .No friends.No pets.No unwanted guests.No helpers.Just us. Now I’m an avid introvert.In short terms , I don’t like to be social with people if they are not extremely close. All of the introverts reading this would agree staying at home alone is the best euphoria felt ever. So I assumed this experience as worst it could get was it would make me more introverted . What else could change?.

My preparations for Jee Advanced had already made me a selfish shellfish. Not slithering out of my room living like I’m the ‘VIP’ of the house. As if preparing for JEE increased the hierarchy of importance of my existence. My reason or rather should I say excuse for not helping my parents was exams. There was one incident that shot a thought in my mind. I might be failing as a daughter.

It was one evening, my Mom came to my room and said the oximeter was showing 130 heart beats per min.I told her to calm down its due to the stress of this sudden situation.But she started feeling uneasy and started crying. I quickly assured her the oximeter was not working and put it on my finger too.It showed 125 beats/min.

“See Mom obviously someone my age cannot have this high bp this is defected.We will buy a new one tomorrow next thing in the morning”.

She started to calm down.I could have told her a corny joke that the oximeter was down with ‘oxicrom’. But it neither existed nor had been discovered in that timeframe.

The oximeter was NOT defected. My heart really beat that hard . My heart cried that day, tears in form of beats.It cried for the guilt,the ignorance I gave to my family during two years of exam preparation.My Mom, my superwoman broke down.I couldn’t see her like that,and me stupidly standing like a gigantic helpless soul. I felt it was not covids fault.It was mine.I started to wash dishes,help making dinner, play board games with my family all these operations just to covert the concave to convex.

Academics was always my priority and still is. But along with it my family has become equally important.This pandemic helped me filter hundred friends of mine to just a few.Who really cared.Who really called.And that was enough.I thought I would never say this but,

I’m extremly thankful to covid for bringing my family closer. The same blood had started running again strongly which even the biggest obstacle cannot clot .I realized what many children don’t realize in their life time. Parents have their own dreams too.

And the greatest lesson I learnt was if you are the smartest person in the world along with being the worst human being, the latter would outshine as a positive times a negative is a negative. Or black mixed with white is black.Or fox into a chicken Is a fox.[This does not apply to covid-postive into negative is infact positive].