Pandemic losses: The year dreams went to die | Economic Times

When Namitha MS got accepted to a college in Pune for her MBA in 2020, she was over the moon. This was her chance to leave behind Bengaluru, the city where she has lived all her 23 years, and have a host of novel experiences such as living in a hostel — a rite of passage for many. A year on, that experience remains out of reach, thanks to the pandemic.Since Covid-19 began making its way across the globe, millions have gone through a multitude of such lost opportunities. “Over the last year, my therapy practice has just been about these types of stories: people having lost out on opportunities, seeing their plans change,” says Pallavi Arora, a counselling psychologist in Gurgaon.In the face of the devastating loss of life and livelihood caused by the pandemic, it is tempting to dismiss the loss of the chance to take up a new job or missing a family milestone event, but psychologists say it is important to identify and acknowledge our personal losses, and not minimise them. “Be very mindful of when you start to dismiss your own pain because someone else’s seems greater,” says Arora. One thing she does with many of her clients is to help them identify and acknowledge their losses. “I think that’s something all of us need to do — to really take stock of how much our life has been disrupted and what exactly we’ve lost.”Here are the stories of a few such lost opportunities over the past one year — giving up on an Olympic dream, shelving a startup venture, missing the birth of a grandchild — and the coping mechanisms that have helped people come to terms with these.Gave up on an Olympic dreamVirdhawal Khade, 30 SwimmerSwimmer Virdhawal Khade was desperate to return to the pool. The bronze medallist of the 2010 Asian Games had set his sights on the Tokyo Olympics — but the pools in Maharashtra were shut for eight long months last year, his training was suspended and his hopes of competing in the Games kept dashing against the walls.Khade had clocked 22.4 seconds in men’s 50 m freestyle at a qualifying event in 2019 — it was a national record and a B qualification for the Games, but it doesn’t guarantee a berth. He was hopeful of making the A qualification mark of 22.01 seconds, which gives a direct entry to the Olympics.Then the pandemic struck. The lockdown followed. Khade tried to stay fit. “I made sure I did not put on an extra gram of weight. But it wasn’t the same.” Finally, with no inkling of when pools would reopen, the 30-year-old took a difficult decision. He would stop thinking about the sport that had consumed his life, take a break and focus on his family and his day job as a tehsildar, even if that meant giving Tokyo a miss.Once he made up his mind, he says, he felt at peace. “I swim because I love competition. Without a goal, I find it difficult to motivate myself. I was getting frustrated every single day, till I finally decided to take a break.” Key to his coping strategy was Thor, the Lhasa Apso pup that he and his wife adopted in the lockdown.With pools closed once again in the second wave, Khade has no regrets about what he has given up. But he worries about the sport: “Everyone says Indian swimmers aren’t as good as others. We had been trying to catch up for years. Now it will take us a couple of years to make up for this lost time.” 83465547Birth Pangs Usha Murthy, 62 RetireeUsha Murthy knows exactly what she will do when she finally gets to meet her newborn grandson. “I will run to him, hold him, cuddle him and kiss him.” She has it down pat, for that’s all she has been dreaming about for months. Her husband, she jokes, has been saying how he wishes he had wings to fly to The Netherlands from Bengaluru and see their first grandchild, whose birth they were forced to miss because of the pandemic.It was a trip they had been planning ever since they learnt in April 2020 that their daughter was expecting. They hoped the situation would improve close to the delivery. “But everything went palat-palat (upside down),” she says. The first couple of months after her daughter’s delivery were particularly trying for Murthy, 62. “I couldn’t sleep at night. Sometimes, I used to cry, thinking how they had to manage alone,” she says. The daily video calls help but it’s not the same. “We are really missing out on those first few months.”Meanwhile, she and her husband have got vaccinated and are planning to buy a mini sherwani to gift the child, whenever they meet. “Now we just need the visa office to open,” she says. 83465567MBA from the bedroomNamitha MS, 24 StudentFor Namitha MS, doing her MBA was never about the degree alone. The two-year course at a reputed institute in Pune was to be her ticket out of Bengaluru, where she has spent all her life, a chance to experience hostel life, have roommates and stay up all night with friends. But the pandemic and consecutive lockdowns have meant doing half of her master’s online, locked down with her parents at home.“I was mentally prepared to go to campus in September but that kept getting pushed,” says Namitha. Now, she and her classmates are wondering if it might be 2022 by the time they finally meet. “If I had any idea 2020 would be like this, I wouldn’t have written the exam. An MBA is not just about what your lecturers teach you, it’s about what you learn from your peers, about networking.”Still, she has been able to make new friends, attend lectures and even become part of clubs online. But what she is missing the most, she says, are the simple pleasures of college life. “I never thought I’d say this but I miss sitting in class... things like sitting on the backbench, sharing food while a class is on.” 83465597Stuck at home Shibumi Raje, 32 LawyerIn her seven hectic years as a lawyer, the longest break Shibumi Raje had managed stretched to all of two weeks and three weekends. That was set to change from October 2019, when Raje quit her job for an 8-to-10-month sabbatical, which was to be interspersed with long stretches of travel. March was to be spent in Japan in time for sakura season, with her mother. The next couple of months would be split between US and Europe, including a solo trip to Slovenia. This was also to be a time to reflect on her career, relocate from Bengaluru to Mumbai and spend time with family.Raje , 32 , has checked just two things: move to Mumbai and spend time with family. Back in March 2020, once she knew she would have to cancel all her bookings, a rollercoaster of disappointment and anger followed. What helped her come to terms with it was that the rest of the world, too, had come to a standstill. That and the fact that she was privileged enough to isolate safely with enough savings.When the world reopens, Raje knows she will be able to travel, but it won’t be the way she had planned. “The slow, immersive travel is a missed opportunity. Another sabbatical is not feasible in the immediate future,” she says. 83465616Startup shutdown Shreya Jha, 42 Marketing professionalAt the end of May, Shreya Jha made a final call to her developer and decided to pull the plug on her startup’s website. There was little choice — the server costs were adding up for the website of a business that was never launched. “It felt like I was letting go of little parts of me,” says the 42-year-old marketing professional.It wasn’t meant to be like this. After 16 years in marketing, Jha had gone to Barcelona for a master’s in high-tech entrepreneurship. That’s where the seed of a startup was planted — Find a Buddy, a platform for people to meet for offline activities. On returning to Mumbai, she began working on her venture in right earnest, investing all her time, effort and money. The launch was slated for March 2020. By then, Covid-19 had brought the world to a standstill.At first, Jha thought of putting Find A Buddy on hold for a few months. But even as restrictions eased, the contagious virus brought into question the very premise of the platform, which would involve meeting strangers. Now, after a year of waiting and with nearly all her savings exhausted, Jha is looking for a corporate job to return to.“It was bad luck,” she says. Having gone all-in for an idea she was passionate about, giving it up was difficult. However, the same pandemic that tore apart her plans has also helped her see her loss in perspective. “I’ve lost so many people close to me. It has been easier to accept the loss of the business because at least you can eventually pick it up.” 83465663Missing the right noteRuth Isaia, 18 StudentHaving sung in choirs since she was in second grade, it was not surprising that Ruth Isaiah chose music as one of her majors for her undergraduate degree. But singing in a choir where you blend your voices, practise harmony and learn from each other is a world away from doing it online. “It’s unnerving because you have to unmute one by one on a video call and sing. It takes all the fun out of it,” says the 18-year-old.With lockdown succeeding lockdown, it’s one of the many things about first year in college that Isaiah has had to miss out on. “I had seen pictures of the campus and was looking forward to being there, meeting people, using the recording studio. There’s also a choir concert every year with choirs from different institutes, but this year that was also online,” she says.The one silver lining, she says, is how well her class has managed to get along with one another, despite never having met in real life. “We gelled well from Day 1, with everyone spamming the WhatsApp groups with memes — maybe because everyone was desperate to meet people!”With no clarity yet on on-campus classes, Isaiah is not making any plans. “I’ll have to get used to not attending classes in pyjamas,” she chuckles. “But I’m looking forward to it.” 83465714