The Standout Winner of the 'Amazing 2020'

Depair and Pessimism was abound and doomsday declared by almost the entire humanity in March 2020. People involved with stock markets, most of whom had fading memories of March 2000 and Oct 2008 were in utter disbelief and majority of the fund managers with less than 10 years in business couldn’t believe that markets could make 2-3 days of downward circuits and March 2020 would remain etched in the memory of humanity for a long time.

But the year has been phenomenal in every aspect of measurement and fathom and 2020 might go down in history as one of the best years of the century and here is my argument in continuation to a piece that I wrote a few months ago ‘Corona May Be The Biggest Blessing In Disguise for Humanity’, …..

1. Humans wished well for everyone else on the planet – Such a far cry from the erstwhile world order where ethnicity, religions and beliefs were the divisive catalysts.
2. Global Medical Fraternity came together to share data and research and a slew of vaccines were made with great proven efficacy in just less than 9 months – pertinent to mention that only 7 vaccines were ever successfully produced in the last 100 years.
3. Altruism got redefined by the frontline Covid Warriors across the planet. These noble souls that form the medical fraternity worked for days without any rest, put their lives in danger, hundreds lost lives but still held fort for the greater common good of humanity. Our heads must bow down in deepest debt of gratitude for them.
4. Families found solace and enhanced emotional connect amongst and within each other and started respecting the virtues of looking inwards. The joy of spending time while acknowledging and appreciating what we do for each other (often taken for granted) has been a virtuous re-discovery.
5. Friends for a season or a reason lost significance and we longed only for true friends for a lifetime and rekindled the lost connects and relationships that were always strong and reliable but had lost sheen because of the natural efflux of time.
6. The struggle by all people trying to connect digitally through skype and webex and failing miserably over the last 2 decades, came to an end with the newfound frictionless experience provided by ZOOM. Never ever in the history has a noun become a verb in such short time. Even Google took a whole lot longer to become a verb.
7. The struggle ordained by executives wearing their ill-fitting suits and soiled tie knots that hadn’t been ever untied and taking early morning flights at wee hours to travel across the country and globe to attend futile meetings, mostly non productive a the cost of the corporate profits – came to an end and sales calls and meetings could just be acceptably attended by one and all. But for an accidental camera-direction malfunction (that became global news instantly to the benefit of lockdowned populace longing for amusement), just a boxer with a shirt and tie - almost became the globally accepted attire as long as the camera didn’t capture it.
8. Homemakers unapologetically discovered guinea pigs within their families by experimenting with exotic cuisines without the option to their partners to give any honest feedback about their culinary skills, but on a serious note discovered the orgasmic joy of cooking and experimenting with gastronomy. I personally leant the fine art of making shushi and some of my friends who also happen to be members of the mutual appreciation club believe that I can probably give competition to Sukiyabashi Jiro
9. Mark Zukerberg and Steve Jobs are legends who changed the world but another personality trait of theirs, of an entire life wearing similar clothes became a fashion trend. Most of us have found the amazing virtues of minimalism where we could consciously differentiate between our needs and wants and could discover virtues of ikigai style of living and conduct and thereby decluttering our lives.
10. Contrary to the pursuit of materialism and proving a point to someone around us, humans learnt that health is the real wealth. The suddenness of the possibility of kicking the bucket made us all realise that we and only we are responsible for how we treat ourselves and our body that’s the temple of our existence. People are exercising more, eating less and are generally demonstrating gratitude towards simple things such as good health.

But the winner is none of all this….

The winner of this year gone by, is human resilience and adaptability that makes us homo-sapiens a truly advanced and evolved creation of God that adapts itself to changing circumstances, is audaciously hopeful of a brighter future, demonstrates grace in adversity and above all can overcome all vicissitudes that are thrown towards us.

A rotten lemon came by in the garb of 2020 and the humanity made the best lemonade.

What lies ahead

1. More tolerance and appreciation of all the things around us. The bounty of nature and respect for mother earth.
2. Bitcoin lovers will be able to buy their Bugattis
3. The stock market lovers will continue to believe that there is no bubble and that Nifty PE of 40 and over is very justified because quality is never expensive and one cannot overpay for quality.
4. Indian gene pool has proven itself to be the most superior – let there be no doubt. The control of the pandemic and dramatic flattening of the curve isn’t because of any amazing managerial, political or medical superiority. Our peninsula seems to be producing the most intelligent and most resilient homo sapiens. Survival of the fittest stands proved.
5. IMHO the Indian street food, Pani Pooris and Chana Bhaturas (cooked in suspicious conditions of  hygiene) might have built the strongest immunity for Indians over the last 100 years.
6. India is likely to emerge many shades stronger for the respect that it has garnered over the last few years. Our rapidly advancing economic, social and political clout will make us emerge into a force to reckon with while China seems to have spread itself terribly thin because of its misadventures (border, virus, currency manipulation, mysterious disappearance of dissenters) on various fronts.
7. Meaningful affiliations and alliances with India is no longer an option but a necessity for the G7 nations
8. As deep-rooted corruption ebbs away slowly albeit steadily, India’s friction points, ease of doing business, infrastructure will all dramatically improve catalysing a steep uptick in GDP. 5 Tr $ by 2025 might be a distant dream but 10 Trillion by 2030 looks achievable.
9. Travel and Tourism Industry ( from the present 7 million inbound and 50 million outbound ) is set to see a resurgence like never before. Imagine the demand uptick when these 50 million outbound Indians decide to discover the virtues and under-appreciated tourist treasures within India.
10. The coming decade undoubtedly belongs to India and we will see it achieving its colloquial adage ‘the golden bird’ all over again

Our responsibilities as a citizen

Kennedy said – ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country’ – As responsible citizens if each one of us just resolves (just one resolve) to stay away from any form of corruption, corruption through diluted intent, thought, deed - at every level, and not fan it by resigning to the demands of the system. Stop maintaining neutrality in the times of moral crisis, this itself will remove dozens and dozens of friction points from the system that’s presently known to be sluggish and inefficient and will eventually bump up our GDP, national profitability and global stature by hundreds of basis points.

Happy New Year, God Bless You and God Bless India. 

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