Mixed Year, Missed Year

This is difficult, writing this down. 2021 has definitely not been the year we all wished we had. After an entire year of gloom, sickness and death, the whole world was looking to return to normalcy. 

Nothing fancy, just a normal life like it used to be. Whoever said that 'normal is boring' had no idea what fun it is to be stuck in public transport with random strangers, and eating out at restaurants, and meeting others in parks and cafes. It is only when you are deprived of your regular freedoms that you begin to miss things you took for granted. And so, 2021 was supposed to be that big year when everything went back to how it was.

Yet, it didn't. We missed the whole year again. We humans have this uncanny ability to over-estimate and be under prepared. Despite all those warnings, humanity did not learn anything. Many more fell sick, and many of them died. Variants. Mutations. These scientific terms is now everyday lexicon for the billions that survived.

So cautiously, here is hoping that we are now prepared for what is to come round the corner. Hope everyone has a normal year.

A normal, boring year. We can't take any more surprises.

Happy Freedom day Anniversary !!

Happy anniversary ! Of what , you ask ? Of the day we got back our freedom. This time last year, the city opened up after more than 100 days in possibly the longest COVID related quarantine lockdown. Remember  ?

Well, in case you don't , here is page to refresh your memory. 

It was a hard earned victoria. For all Victorians.

Earthquake !!

22nd Septmber, 2021. It began like any other day in lockdown, me logging in to work from home, on a cold, grey day. Promise of sun later in the day. First meeting ended about 5 minutes past 9am. I remember thinking: goodness, its only the first meeting of the day and it already went overtime. What a promising way to start.

And then, it happened. About 12 minutes after 9, my table began to shake. Slowly at first, and then a little more visibly. I ran into the adjacent room, and felt the table there. Yep it moved too. No sound. Then called the family and all of us took shelter under the big wooden table in the dining room. 

Now we could really feel the shakes, the entire house was shaking. I was surprisingly calm on the outside, but I could hear my heart beat fast. Mentally I was thinking what I need to take with us if we had to run out. Phone ,wallet, Ids, mask, jacket...It was 30 seconds of soft adrenaline pump.

I had read about earthquakes and what one needs to do in case one hits. And distinctly remembered taking shelter under a strong table, to protect from falling objects. And we had known there will be aftershocks too, in many cases the aftershocks are more powerful than the first wave.

Once the tremors ended, we took up what we could and ran out and down. Others had come out too, all looking around in surprise. But the majority of folks were still inside. We later found out that there were five more aftershocks later, but we didn't feel any on the ground. And around us, there were still people in exercise gear doing their morning runs, having no idea that an 5.8 scale earthquake had just hit.

After a few more minutes of waiting, went round the corner and got some coffee, they sure got some business in the morning. Nothing like a strong coffee to wake you up from a morning tremor.

Experiences like these are once in  a lifetime, I hope ! 🙄 That was a massive shake, and most cities give up easily, with buildings crumbling to the ground. Apart from a few fallen bricks, Australia didn't report any damage. Not one single death. And that is remarkable. Or maybe just lucky this time.

This is science at work, and nature. We are after all, inhabiting a part of a tectonic plate, which is constantly moving over molten lava. Yes, we can build strong , and discover new materials. But if the ground beneath gives way, whats the construction above going to do ? There are natural powers on this planet far more strong and un-controllable than human overconfidence.

Just another reminder that we are here as guests. Enjoy what we can when we still have time.

15th August. Is it worth celebrating ?

 All the news is now about COVID, that sometimes other news just gets buried underneath. 

It was only yesterday I heard that this year India will celebrate its 75th year of Independence.

75 ! Wow. We have come a long way. 

Or have we ?

What are we celebrating ?  Should we ? It is worth it ?

And how fast time flies !!

I remember the year India celebrated its 50th year of Independence. The celebrations were on for a whole year.

The news was all about hope, and progress, and success gained and success on the way. I was still in school , but I felt great about the country and the times. I felt this was the best place to be in the world right now.  There was no need to worry about the future, because WE will make the future.

I was naive. 

So if you are celebrating this year , good for you.

Most aspirant migrants won't be able to.

 Another half year done ! It is officially winter again in Australia, and summery-rainy in India. And with countries starting to take this vaccine-race seriously (except ScoMo, who prefers a stroll), things are starting to look better. Already countries are trying to remove travel bans, and come up with vaccine-passports, to allow unrestricted and un-quarantined travel internationally. 

Yes, very well aware of the fact that the vaccinated can still get COVID, but it won't be as deadly serious as it has been.

Which has brought back the attention to old conundrum- human migration. Unlike birds and beasts who can cross borders unrestricted, human beings need to get permission to move into a new country.

Over on reddit , clueless aspirants have always asked questions on how they can 'easily' move across to a more developed nation permanently, without the hassle of a higher education. And foremost among them are Indians.

People from every career and age group have been asking of the easy way to get out of India. And the answer is cruel. There is no easy way.

Most of the people asking questions about migrating, won't be able to follow through with their plans. They are the early stage of migrating, where they have not yet made a decision where they want to go to. The fact that they are asking questions on a free site for free information means they haven't done the cost and time analysis for a permanent migration.

Yes, moving permanently out of the country you were born into , to a totally new nation , with new rules, languages and culture is one of the biggest decision a person can take. And it is especially difficult when the mgirant is stuck in a third world country like India/Bangaldesh/somwhere in Africa, to a developed nation. And the reason for this is cost. The cost of the visa alone is unbearable , and many times the average  yearly salary. And there are additional costs and expenditures that play out when the migrant moves.

But there is also the red-tape that comes from the nations being so different. In India , for instance, many youngsters choose to study courses which don't have a worker demand in foreign nations. Like Art, or History. Nowadays the modern age has given rise to digital nomads, who 'specialise' in digital marketing and social media management. But these professions cannot help one move over, as they do not require special skills. Also courses taught in colleges in India need not be in tune with those taught abroad. This is why a thorough skill assessment is done during the the PR application process, to assess whether the candidate's education and work experience will be relevant in the target country.

But then there are the cut-offs. Countries which offer a points based migration path have upper limits to age, which leads to tricky situations. You could have 15 years work experience, and gain points, but by that time you will also be in your thirties, which means you lose points for age. The reality is this: if you have not migrated permanently by the time you are 30, your chances diminish rapidly after that.

Then there is the language problem. Except for a few countries like US, UK, most developed nations use a different language for everyday conversation. And this poses a big problem for those trying to move to Germany, Italy, France, Netherlands...etc. Even Canada uses French. So moving to such countries automatically means gaining the required expertise in whatever language they use. This means additional cost, and time, to train and take the language test. And yes, the tests are strict, and there are various levels that accurately measure exactly how fluent you are.

And finally, there is the harsh reality that getting a visa to move is just step 1. Step 2 is to get that first job. And there is no guarantee of how long it will take you to land your first job in the new country, after having moved there. Companies are hesitant to make offers to immigrants who have just moved in. The afore mentioned differences in language and culture are some reasons, but most employers are just not willing to take that risk, until they can get a proper reference from you. I have heard stories of people who spent upto 6 months looking for jobs, and had to return when they couldn't land one.

Moving countries is not easy, and needs investment in money , time, and patience. And most important, a plan. Like most things in life, there is no easy way out.

But people have done it, and continue to do it. And that means that it is not impossible. The pandemic has dealt a blow to the migration plans of many millions, and changes in the way people and companies work means things will be visibly different from now on. 

To summarise, most aspirant migrants wont' be able to do so. But for those who are committed to the cause, and willing to go any length, maybe, just maybe, they could.

How much are you committed  ? 

It was good while it lasted

 Yep. We had a good run. And it was good while it lasted. I am talking of the relative COVID-free time that the State of Victoria and the city of Melbourne enjoyed for maybe about 6 months. 

Victoria had come of out a severe and extended lockdown by the end of 2020. Cautiously, and tired, people ventured out, to celebrate a well earned summer break. It was beautiful. The sun was out, people were back. But more important, there was hope. That that would be the last time we Victorians had to endure such a collective trauma. And this was evident in the news: after headlines of people suffering and dying from COVID, the news reverted to people getting bitten by sharks and jellyfish, and another set of possible summer bush fires.

Most places of work started taking down their restrictions. Employees returned, cautiously I should add, to their workplaces all over the country. But it was clear that the next step in this fight was to get the vaccines, in order to provide a lasting protection against the isolated cases still trickling down into Australia. You see, the airports and the borders had reopened, and this meant that Australians stuck abroad could now return, in small numbers.  They had to quarantine for 14 days, and it was in these hotels that the next set of cases began getting out. There was  a breach in South Australia, but the numbers were down in single digits. But there were also talks of new, severe mutant variants of COVID, which spread faster, and with fewer symptoms.

But people trusted the govt, and waited for the vaccine shots. Patiently. And the govt, kept falling off the train. The country does not have any pharma company that could make the vaccine themselves, so they were completely reliant on imports, like they are for most things. And the EU blocked further exports of the vaccines as AstraZeneca was behind committed shipments to EU states. It was becoming clear that the federal govt had no clear set goals to this target.

And so we had no option but to wait. And slowly and steadily, the masks came off, and people came out to enjoy the rest of summer and whole of Autumn. The govt was more concerned that people were reluctant to return to the cities, and less concerned that those who were willing to get vaccinated, were not getting the shots. There were huge plans announced to try and entice city foot traffic back, which included free coffee and restaurant deals !

Too soon. Because winter brought bad news. A new COVID variant has now hit the state, and is spreading rapidly across the city. This new variant was first found in India, and got of hotel quarantine in SA again. But by the time it was found, patient 0 had visited some very populous parts of the city. As of today the count of total cases stands at 60+. And they are still rising. 

Starting last week, the state was pushed into another severe lockdown. And just like that, were all back in our homes. A bitter reminder that the pandemic was still not over on earth. 

While other countries are still fighting the virus with primitive healthcare, we in Australia has so far had a better run. 6 months of relative freedom was not that bad, to be honest. I got to go on a short holiday. We got more sun than we thought we would. There were days we celebrated, and evenings were revelled in. Even had a get together at work. All of that was a welcome relief from a year of being locked in. 

It is not over yet. The wait continues. 

We should not forget this happened

 

India's second Covid wave

 Failure of governance.

Overconfidence.

Celebrating too early.

This is what all this has lead to.

A nation celebrated too early.

This was reported in March , 2021. Before the second wave hit India.

 

Nation doomed

India has long lived in a state of denial. And now it is clear the country is doomed. 

It takes guts to do the right thing. And none of those in power there has these guts.

Somebody please lock the country down already.

How India lost the vaccine war

Text from the-ken.com/the-nutgraf/how-india-lost-the-vaccine-war/

If you’ve been following the news, two really important events happened last week.

 

The President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced that all adults across the US would be eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in the next two weeks. Earlier, the US had expected this to happen by 1 May. Things are going so well that they’ve decided to move it up by two weeks. 

 

Meanwhile, India is going in the opposite direction. The pace of vaccination, which was steadily picking up, now appears to be slowing down. Multiple states have reported shortages, while the number of coronavirus cases across the nation is accelerating. Adar Poonawalla, CEO of the Serum Institute of India (SII), the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, has said that existing production capacity is "very stressed, to put it frankly" and that “we are still short of being able to supply to every Indian”. 

Public memory is short, but back then, we weren’t even sure if we’d even get a vaccine. Nobody had created a working vaccine for a coronavirus, and the fastest vaccine ever developed took us over four years. We had to achieve the impossible while the world was in a global lockdown, with supply chains paralysed. 

Even in the early days, any betting person would tell you this—if a vaccine was going to be developed, it would likely be developed by a pharmaceutical company in the US. The logic was obvious. The pharma industry in the US was one of the most advanced in the world. It had the know-how. It had a history of research and development. And it had the capital. 

 

However, if you asked the same betting person to guess where the vaccine was going to be manufactured on a mass scale, the most likely answer you were going to get was… India. 

 

Again, the reasoning was obvious. India is a vaccine manufacturing powerhouse—at that time nearly 60% of the world's vaccines were manufactured by a small group of manufacturers in the country.

 

For the global pandemic to quickly end, the US would have to develop and discover the vaccine, and India would have to manufacture it. 

 

The US was going to be the inventor. India was going to be the factory. 

 

And both of them had to work faster and smarter than they had ever done before to make it happen. 

 

Operation Warp Speed

 

Faced with this reality, in May 2020, the US federal government decided to act boldly and swiftly. It understood that the problem wasn’t whether we’d develop a vaccine but was to identify a vaccine sooner and to manufacture it faster when it was identified. With every additional month, people were dying, lockdowns became more severe, and the economy continued to plummet. This needed to be arrested quickly.

 

So the federal government made a plan. The plan was to support seven different vaccine candidates simultaneously to speed up trials and the approval process and to promote ways to manufacture them at scale.

 

This program was called Operation Warp Speed. And it was conceived as a partnership between the federal government and private companies. 

 

Pay attention to the last bit. It’s important.

 

The US government was smart enough to understand that the only way that a vaccine would emerge faster was if it just gave the pharma companies lots of money to fund their research and got out of the way. Not all companies needed the funding. Companies like Pfizer, which were well-capitalised, didn’t need it. However, others did. And once pharmaceutical companies realised that there was free money on the table and that they didn’t need to put in risk capital of their own, they jumped at the chance.

 

How much money? 

 

Oh, a little over $11 billion. Given out to eight of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. 

 

All tasked with one mission — find a vaccine. 

 

All of them used different methods to get there.  

Here’s a list, from Wikipedia.

And that’s how the American pharmaceutical companies got to work. 

 

In India, on the other hand, something else was happening. 

 

Serum Institute of India

 

India had several vaccine manufacturers, but the biggest one was a company called the Serum Institute of India (SII). 

 

SII is an unusual company for many reasons. First, it’s entirely privately held by a billionaire family. It originally started off as a horse farm and soon graduated to vaccines. By 2020, it was the largest manufacturer of vaccines in the world, churning out nearly 1.5 billion doses every year. SII’s customers are mostly from other countries around the world; it’s an Indian private company with international customers. 

 

And when the pandemic hit, SII saw an opportunity and stepped up. One could argue that they had no other option. Others could argue that it would have been foolish to skip such a business opportunity. 

 

Nevertheless, SII was ready for the challenge. 

 

SII may be a private, family-run company, but it was still a company. Companies have a certain amount of risk appetite. And SII had a choice ahead of it—do they manufacture the vaccine or not? And by when? 

 

From SII’s standpoint, the sensible thing to do would have been to wait until it found out which vaccine would work and then scale up the production of that vaccine. 

 

Instead, SII decided to take a calculated bet. 

Last May, Poonawalla met the AstraZeneca chief executive, Pascal Soriot, on a video call, and negotiated a deal for SII to manufacture about 1bn doses over 12 months – almost half the overall total.

The same month a package arrived at SII’s vast campus in Pune, 150km south-east of Mumbai. Packed in dry ice was a vial containing the components needed to create the Oxford vaccine, cell substrate in which to grow it and detailed instructions. Not included were the results of any clinical trials or regulatory approvals that the vaccine was effective or even safe.

Nevertheless, Poonawalla ordered three of his factories – which were at the time making “some very lucrative [other] vaccines” – to immediately switch production to the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine AZD1222.

“We produce 1.5bn vaccine doses each year. We never imagined the whole world being so dependent on us, but nobody else has our capacity to scale up,” he said. The decision to invest, he added, was easy because the firm is a private business “and not accountable to investors and bankers and shareholders”.

Instead, he says, “it was just a quick five-minute chat between myself and my father.” It was also, he admits, “a huge gamble – huge, huge, huge. People said I was crazy or stupid doing such a big bet at that time.

Now SII is a company in pursuit of profits, so this wasn’t exactly an altruistic move. Business decisions aren’t supposed to be altruistic. Despite this, it’s hard to deny that it was a risky business decision. 

 

But there was one problem. It was the same problem as in the United States.

 

Money. 

 

There was no Operation Warp Speed in India. In fact, for a long time, news about whether SII would receive funding to scale up and manufacture the vaccine was quite murky. In one interview back in April 2020, Poonawalla said that “(the government) are very happy to share some risk and fund something with us, but we haven’t really pencilled anything down yet”. Around the time, the Department of Biotechnology had helped fund a Phase-III clinical trial for the vaccine developed by SII. 

 

So in August, SII, for the first time in its history, went for external funding. It spoke to private equity investors, raised $150 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and even invested $100 million of its own money. 

 

There are no news reports to be found about any funding for SII from the Indian government. 

 

Incentives 

 

It’s one thing to offer funding for research and development, but in July 2020, the US government went one step further. 

 

It placed an order with Pfizer for 100 million doses of the vaccine. It paid nearly $2 billion to Pfizer for this. And it did this even before it knew whether the vaccine was going to be a success or not. At that time, several critics pointed out that this was a small number, but the US government had another clause in the deal—it gave itself an option to purchase an additional 500 million doses from Pfizer.

 

It didn’t stop there. 

 

It went and signed another $1.5 billion contract with Moderna for another 100 million doses. 

 

It didn’t stop there. 

 

It also signed contracts with Johnson & Johnson, Novavax, and AstraZeneca for more than 500 million vaccine doses. 

 

The US was basically wearing two hats. In one hat, it acted as the State, pumping in taxpayer money to fund research of the vaccine because it was in public interest. In another hat, it was the vaccine companies’ first customer. It pumped in money to boost their cash flow and to be first in line to reap the rewards should the vaccine succeed. It was the ultimate illustration of skin in the game. 

 

Other countries followed suit. The UK decided to purchase 40 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine. In November, the European Union reached an agreement with Pfizer to buy up to 300 million doses. Canada decided to purchase up to 76 million.

 

The vaccine companies wanted capital. And they had gotten it. 

 

The only question was whether they’d be able to manufacture it at the scale that was needed. 

 

So the US government decided to create incentives not just for development but also for manufacturing. 

 

The missing purchase order 

 

Meanwhile, in India, SII was manufacturing the vaccine at full speed. Since it went ahead even before the vaccine was fully tested, SII had accumulated a stockpile of several million vaccines in its warehouses by the end of 2020. 

 

The company had stepped up, but there were a couple of problems. 

 

Problem 1 : Who gets the vaccines?

 

The deal that SII had struck with the Indian government was that India would purchase the first 100 million vaccines at a price of Rs. 200 ($2.66) each. This was one of the lowest prices in the world. And the only reason that SII signed on with the Indian government at this low rate was based on the understanding that it could sell subsequent doses on the private market at a higher price. 

 

However, SII was not unduly worried because it had already received purchase orders from several countries—including Saudi Arabia, Brazil and Morocco—for millions of doses. All of this would help fund SII and enable it to scale up. Morocco had signed a supply contract for 20 million doses back in August 2020.

 

But there was a problem: the Indian government hadn’t signed any purchase orders with SII. 

 

In January 2021, India’s largest vaccine manufacturer had no idea how many vaccines the Indian government would need and by when. 

The vaccines were ready. 

 

50 million of them. 

 

But the Indian government wasn’t. 

 

Problem 2 : More vaccines were needed

 

SII was manufacturing close to 60 million doses a month. It needed this number to be much higher to have any hope of meeting India’s requirement. Then the company had a fire in its factory, which Poonawalla later said cut short its plans to expand production. 

 

India had an entire year to scale up manufacturing capabilities across the nation, all to produce the vaccine at a war footing when it was ready. 

 

But it didn’t.

 

Then on 11th January 2021, the Indian government finally placed an order with SII. It was its first purchase order.

 

It ordered 11 million doses.

 

Two weeks later, the United States federal government exercised its second option with Pfizer and Moderna. 

 

It ordered 300 million doses, bringing the total order to 600 million doses. 

Meanwhile, in India, as the coronavirus cases rose, India quickly suspended exports on all vaccines. 

 

Countries that had booked vaccines with SII much earlier than everyone else were told to wait. India’s needs had to come first.

 

One of them was Brazil, where 3,000 people die from the coronavirus every day. 

 

Two days back, SII received a legal notice from AstraZeneca, the developer of the vaccine, over delays. 

 

Earlier this week, SII asked for financial help from the Indian government to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore (~$400 million). 

 

As of this morning, there has been no official response from the government to SII’s request.

There’s no real moral to this story, but it does reveal some interesting perspectives about the two nations. 

 

The story of India and the US’ contrasting methods of developing the vaccine is one of the oldest in political theory—it’s about the relationship between the state, capital, and the free market. All these entities are quite complex and often exist with a great deal of tension between them. Even more complicated is the fact these entities also operate together—and often have orthogonal goals. 

 

The US federal government understood the rules of the game and played by it. It understood that private players operate in a free market and acted as a buyer while also providing capital. 

 

If you look at the US, it appears as though everyone won—the pharma companies, the government and even the American citizens — every single person received the vaccine for free.

 

India, on the other hand, did everything else. It treated private companies like the SII with a mixture of disdain and ownership, and by the end, it’s clear that nobody is a winner. 

 

Not the Indian government.

 

Not SII. 

 

And certainly not India’s citizens. 

 

It’s going to be a rough few months ahead. 

 

Stay safe and take care.

One quirk I hate about life here.

This is not a rant. At least not 'that' kind of rant. But I had to write it down somewhere.  There is this one thing I hate about life in a developed nation like Australia. It is not a first world problem per-se. But it looks like one for someone who just came in. It is about doctors. 

Doctors in this country simply don't want to prescribe medications. There, I said it.

If GPs here had their say, which they do, they would rather every sick person just stay at home and recover naturally, via a miracle. You could have 50 degree fevers, and coughing from your lungs, but the doctors here will not prescribe antibiotics. At best, they will recommend getting an OTC cough syrup. And then, plenty of rest. 

Now I work in a system with ample sick leaves to take, so I can stay at home and rest, aided by the medical certificate issued by the GP, and will still get paid for it. But that does not make my illness go away. It actually makes things worse for us because now I need special care, and the fear of spreading something to the family. The sooner I get better, the better it is for everyone.

But not everyone working here has ample sick leaves. Most workers prefer contract jobs, because they pay higher. But contract workers do NOT get paid sick leaves. In fact, they don't get any paid leaves. So those workers, will try to still work and get to office, even when they are not fully recovered. And this is a humongous problem.

This means that ill workers still spread their illness to unsuspecting co-workers, because they don't want to miss out on pay.

And a private GP will gladly charge you 100 dollars, and still not prescribe a proper medicine.

In most cases, this means a worsening condition leading to hospitalisation. 

Which is where I am typing this rant from. 

Summer's out !

I think we can officially say this, Victoria's summer's out, until December this year. Just checked the accuweather forecast , and the temperature is not expected to cross over 27 for the next 3 months. And I still don't know they can do it this accurately ( they are pretty much spot on), but they usually able to predict temperatures months ahead, with a variance of 3 degrees ! So that's it, we never had a summer last year. We sort of just drifted the low 30s for about 5 days in all of Feb, and off we go to a wonderful autumn !

Which just brings back the old realization: how  time flies ! This time last year, the world was just starting to realize that 2020 won't be the fun and games everyone expected it to be. Australia was still a month away from its first official lockdown. At this point, we were still getting our morning runs and noon beach trips. Australians were still planning their international holidays, and international students were still coming into the country. 

And by all means, the worst may be over here, but it has definitely not ended. Australia officially rolled out their first vaccine shots this week, and best estimates say it will be till October until a sizeable chunk of us get them. And just like in every cucumber country, there are fierce anti-vaxxers here as well; who would rather get the disease over sacrificing their irrational beliefs.

Technically, it is better for our species to let these people by. You know, evolutionwise.

Victoria has just voted to extend its state of emergency till December this year, to have that level of caution. Hopefully this will rein in the more adventurous folk, by levying heavy fines for rule breakers. 

The La-nina is still around, and it is expected to bring gloomy weather, with overcast , cloudy skies and long rains. Friendly reminder, rain is always good. Yes, you need to carry an umbrella, but at least you will have water round the year to grow those avocados. But the chilly, cloudy skies is a bummer, and a reminder that harsh winters are just around the corner.

Times up. Time to go find that missing glove and raincoat. Have a chilly good day !

Soul purpose

 Pixar's SOUL.

What a year ! What a wonderful year ! And it has only been 3 weeks now. A democratically elected wannabe-dictator walks out of office today, and vaccine shots are being administered around the world. National economies are all trying to get back to shape, to make up for the lost income in the last year. I have been busy too, but found the time to invest in probably the most soul-touching movie of last year. Pixar's Soul. See what I did there ?

Funny enough, I didn't even know Pixar was working on such a movie in the first place. I haven't yet watched Onward, their other movie from last year. I hear it is a bummer.

But anyway, with Soul, the writers there have chosen to tackle a rather difficult subject to explain to kids  : death. What happens after we die ? That has to be the oldest questions man has every asked, just after "Where am I?". Various cultures and later religions have come up with the warm hearted idea of an after life, and the idea of the soul; the essence of ones personality. After death, the soul moves on . But where ? And can it get back ? What if it is not ready to go ?

Pixar's Soul tells this story in a comical, and soft fun centered way, of there being a place were souls are born, then send to earth to live  and after death, the souls go to the great beyond. Already I have so many questions; like why only earth ? Is there no life anywhere else ? What about the animals and plants ? And how come every thing there speaks English ?

If you really want to enjoy this movie, you have to leave those questions behind, and join in on the ride. The purpose of life, it seems, is to live. It is to take something we have and turn it better. Or so I get the drift. Joe Gardner, our protagonist, is not ready to die. He just got this big break, his chance of a lifetime. So he conspires to steal the earth pass of another soul, and use that to get back to his body on earth.

Only problem is, the soul he tries to steal from, is somebody who does not care about life on earth. So he has to first convince the soul, named 22, to go there, and then use its pass for himself.

When he does get back, he realizes that that chance of a lifetime he was waiting for , it was not fulfilling enough. He thought he would have a special experience, but it was just another day. And realizes that what he truly misses is his everyday life. The small things he took for granted, and all the different people in his life.

I can relate to this. Its something I have believed in, that the small things in life matter more than the huge, hard to get ones. We are all so focused on winning and invisible rat race, that we all take our life and times for granted. 

The big truth is this: until science can one day logically explain it, we are all very fortunate to experience a conscious life like ours own. To live.  Everything around us were created by us humans. By the time people realize the foolishness of their pursuits, its mostly too late. But not for all, for those who value their present time, and the people around, every minute is worth living.

There is this particular montage sequence in the movie, where Joe's life flashes before his eyes, but he is not dying. He remembers his childhood, his parents, his students, and a few times of his life in the city. There is this beautiful musical master piece playing in the back. It is simply beautiful; and eye opener which makes you close your eyes and cry out of sheer joy. I guess every Pixar movie has such a scene, when it stops being a computer animated movie and becomes something much more personal. I have been playing back that song for days now.

And yes there is also jazz. Lot of jazz.

Like I said, we are fortunate to be alive. So lets not waste what we have, and cherish the little things in life. Enjoy the ride, we will get to the destination eventually. 

No hurry.

Post Vacation Blues

I am going through a weird withdrawal phase right now. Having serious holiday blues. I think the clinical term is post-vacation blues. After spending more than a month in vacation, I am now strangely detached from work life. I have no idea what I was working on the last day of work. No idea where I start again, and whom I owe. 

2020 was a particularly tiring year, which I why I decided to take such a long holiday. But maybe I overdid it. Enjoyed Melbourne's , what third winter , this year. A very cold and rainy December, just like back home. Saw dark blue seas and shallow beaches.  Walked through woodlands and around tall trees. Breathed in the eucalyptus laden fresh air. Saw more animals and birds than humans. Completely went off the diet. Pretty sure gained a few kilos. 

But now when I suit up, I realize how fortunate I have been, to be able to take time off work. To be able to say I still have a job, in this troubled economy. To spend more money in a month than what I usually spend in six months. And to easily forget what a horrible year the last one was.

The good news is already starting to come in. Australians will be given the Astrazeneca vaccine, it is being reported. By March. Splendid. And twitter has banned its biggest cyberbully !

This is going to be a good year. I can tell. Only thing is, my mind is still somewhere lost in holiday.

Time to get back to work. Theres lots of to be done.