28 year old Mylaporean Vidhvath Vishwanathan, who recently joined a multinational pharma company in Den Bosch, Netherlands, one that produces vaccines for life threatening illness though not for the Covid virus is learning what it means to ‘work from home’.
He says the lockdown that began a month earlier in Europe helped him in proactively communicating his experience to his senior citizen parents back in Mylapore providing them with simple messages on the preventive and precautionary measures they had to take.
His mother works in a school and his father volunteers in a hospital in Mylapore.
During the first week of the lockdown in India, Vidhvath was frequently in touch with them over the phone sharing messages such as maintaining distances, not to receive or give by hand and so on. He is glad that his parents are in Mylapore for it has thus far seemed to be a safe zone.
He turns philosophical on his own life in the current scenario “Every day at work, I hesitate to say I’m fine! Why? I still have a job, a house, I am able to buy groceries, my family is safe far away in Mylapore! Yes, it may be difficult to stay put, but comparing it to the real problems, there is nothing I should be complaining about.”
Vidhvath has a great message for those currently experiencing the lockdown “As I come to terms with staying at home and ‘working from home’, I realize I have what I need and can separate the essential from the luxury! One hobby is replaced with another, coffee in person is now coffee on the phone. I hope I can be more loving, caring and understanding when I am released from the metaphorical jail, not home, but my limitations to perceive the scale of the world and everything around. Imagine if we could all do this!”
He surely has given us food for thought.
Vidhvath has a doctorate in bioprocess engineering from Delft University of Tech, Netherlands
- Report by S. Prabhu
