Top: Dr. S Karpagam, TS Manohar, Mithuna Maran
Bottom: Sreepradha Venkataramanan, Thirupurasundari Sevvel

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…(Charles Dickens)

It’s A Tale of Two Cities, in fact a tale of our towns and cities – we are all battling COVID, facing cruel times and new challenges. This life teaches us there’s no control over situations. And we find it difficult to accept. Won’t it be better if we learnt to accept the situation and face the problems calmly, to reflect within and find peace? This will give us renewed strength, improve our faith and help us to develop empathy towards people facing challenges.

Recently on World Health Day on 10^th October, WHO (World Health Organization) highlighted the urgent need to increase awareness in mental health and reported depression as a leading cause of illness and disability.  Hence it is crucial for us to invest in mental health and learn to find solace, this state of mind will further help to focus in the professional domain, increase productivity, work passionately and find satisfaction. Love, hope and faith are the three stabilizers that will help us to anchor and find balance in life, especially during such challenging and distressing times.

Being a researcher, I know how challenging it is to strike a fine balance between personal and professional. This pandemic has catapulted all equations. I began my quest to find balance in life and embarked on this open-heart conversation with a few professionals from different walks of life. I was curious to know about their passions in life and how they tried to find meaning in such a chaos.

Dr S Karpagam, Associate Professor and Head, Department of Botany, Queen Mary’s College, Chennai shares, “I always had an interest in reading various topics apart from syllabus oriented course books to literature and varied Geographical interest, fascinating stories and travelogues. Reading, research and teaching has always been a passion to me. Apart from reading, I have interest in doing small artworks like Kolam (Rangoli), embroidery, origami and small clay models. But could not due to lack of time but now I am able to do a few things and also gardening. This unusual situation has got both pros and cons; it changed the perspective of thinking. It has opened new vistas and avenues in teaching. For the past four months I have learnt a lot of technical updates of the digital era. With the normal situation it would have taken a longer time for me to switch over from traditional teaching methods to digital online teaching. But COVID -19 has brought a change at faster pace. I miss going to college, meeting my colleagues and discussing with my research scholars and teaching students. Online teaching does not give full satisfaction of face-to-face interaction with the students. It is like teaching a blank blackboard. From their facial expressions and body language I used to get the idea whether they understood the topic or not. But this is not possible in online teaching. We go on with the syllabus without knowing the exact understanding capacity of the students. I am waiting for that day when this pandemic would be over and I rejoice in going to my academic institution and carry out my work.”

TS Manohar, freelancing professional states, “Being a freelance journalist, it becomes imperative I encounter and engage with people of all walks of life and egg them to speak up. In this regard, I had the opportunity to write about a cross section of people in my column – a  coconut tree climber, two-wheeler mechanic, hair dresser, petty shop owner, roadside tailor and the like. The contagious corona pandemic has put paid to all my activities. Cocooned, confined and constrained at home, the joy of interacting has taken a back seat. Every other day, my well wishers tell me to stay safe than be sorry. Precisely why, this has put a lot of mental pressure on the sub conscious mind.”

He adds, “The weekend swim used to unclog and de-stress my body, mind and spirit completely. The buoyancy and levitation I experience in this whole body exercise has been halted for ever since the onset of pandemic and the consequent lockdown. Till such time we return to normalcy, we need to stay indoors taking the prescribed precautions lest we are infected. Prayers, positivity and staying connected to friends keeps me cheered up. When will be rid of this scourge? I wish it happens soonest.”

Mithuna Maran, PhD Research Scholar in Architectural Acoustics at UK says, “I came to the UK, as a result of the continuous motivation from one of my mentors. As days passed by, I found my interest was not in acoustics anymore. But it was too late for me to change streams. Hence I decided to somehow push myself to the finish line. This pandemic gave me a beautiful opportunity to find out what my passion is and explore a bit on that. I am very grateful that I found my interests on zero waste and frugal practices. Though my parents brought me up in a frugal manner, I am happy to explore on those lines and spread whatever I know to my fellow friends on social media. I got featured for the same on Indian express and the perennial encouragement from my friends keeps me motivated. Since lockdown, I have been posting art from expired pills, fruit peels, nut shells etc and composting, bio enzymes and frugal practices in the kitchen.”

Sreepradha Venkatramanan, a software engineer by definition and a creator by choice. After a stint in software development, she works as a graphics and web designer, game developer and content creator. She chose to switch purely because the aspect of digital creation is her passion. She shares that her passion is creating captivating digital content in the form of 2D art, 3D models, animations and websites and she is grateful to have the opportunity to choose it in her career. She loves the process of taking an idea from its embryonic stage to completion where it comes to life on screen.

The unexpected change that we are all facing together in the world has changed our outlook and she says. “To me, with respect to work and passion, it has posed some unexpected challenges that made me think on my feet. From tangible things like the unavailability of some computer peripheral equipment that I need for content creation to intangible things like the overall mindset shift of creative thought that affects content generation, the pandemic and the associated lockdown situation has definitely dampened my working. However, there’s some silver lining to all. I’ve noticed through my work, it’s in times like this, that the human nature of understanding and cooperation show up, despite the flurry of social media posts about people refusing to wear masks and hold up to social distancing, certain things like delays in shipping of an adapter cord for my graphic tablet could be managed with a few conversations with my clients who were very understanding and waited eagerly for a deliverable piece of art. On a normal day, it would mean stress and anger. Now? Everyone understands that simple normalcy of life is something that we have been taking for granted. It has affected the content. I create too, from rigid models of guns for shooter games; I find that I’m gravitating to creating digital artefacts that spread positivity. Focusing on my passion has helped me stay hopeful and compassionate to everything that’s going on around us. So, overall, yes, the pandemic has affected how I pursue my passion but not in a completely negative way.”

Thirupurasundari Sevvel is an architect and urban planner who runs Studio Conclave, Architectural Consultancy and Nam Veedu Nam Oor Nam Kadhai (Our Home, Our Place, Our Story), an initiative that stems from her passion for storytelling, heritage history and education. She curates stories, exhibitions, workshops on social issues, heritage, social history and uses her expertise as material restorer and conservationist to document traditional techniques and practices of design. This also feeds into her consultancy projects for NGOs, schools and colleges which frequently focus on the planning and building of inclusive, accessible and safe spaces in the city for all. Her team predominantly works with artisans working on traditional materials and techniques, about work on livelihood sustenance.

She states, “Our artisans, artists and team were important to us and their welfare and health are utmost priority. So we stopped, on site work, heritage trails, workshops and continued them online.” In her Nam Stories, the hands that build and create, Manickam Anna says, “Since I will be home, I will work on the colors we discussed last time and also try some textures, sending you some groundnuts from our village, let me know if you need anything else, okay?” Annam paati says, “Should I stitch some masks and send to office, you guys are always out I know? I am also sending some pickles, stay safe. We will also be talking about how we fought Corona in some years.”

Each one trying to make a tangible difference to their passionate endeavors. After all, we all know what makes the world go around...it’s love.