As we all know the current situation is worrisome due the COVID-19 pandemic, it has brought the biggest countries in the world to their feet. The countries which had the best health care and patient care system are helpless and still trying to find a cure or antidote to this virus, first china, then Italy and other world countries. It has its effects on everything, but for us, people here in Kashmir it has gotten things even worse. The reports say we have only 100 or around ventilators which are nowhere to enough number of ventilators to save lives.
God forbid if this disease prevails here we would not be able to come over it, as we don’t have the means. First China, then Italy, Iran and other world countries who are gradually surpassing each other in the number of deaths and infected cases, whereas Italy had the second best healthcare system in the world and still we had to watch it’s supreme leaders burst out in tears as they couldn’t do anything to save their people from these unfortunate deaths.
Whilst here in Kashmir the uprisings, shutdowns, curfews and everything going on over here has already made the industrialists and young entrepreneurs suffer huge losses and many of the units even went bankrupt due to the failure of coping with the recent situation that arouse after the abrogation of article 370 (35A). Many of the young entrepreneurs who were thinking of starting up their ideas and make their lives better have completely dropped the idea of entrepreneurship.
The current situation is not only worrying in terms of health but also in terms of business losses as well. We have already gone through a lot and now due to the COVID-19 pandemic we had to shut down our units for our very own safety as well as the safety of our employees, but this is high time to talk about the situation of industrialists as well as the small business owners, this pandemic has effected every single business person ranging from the street vendor to the highest in rank industrialist.
Though this is a disaster nature put us through, it’s an endlessly fearsome thing for young entrepreneurs like myself and the ones I know who are struggling with payments of bank loans, debts to various people and companies and it’s threatening the spirit of entrepreneurship here, It’s not a hidden fact that not many people here in Kashmir would go after businesses and leave the notion of getting government jobs.
Everyone knows that our parents as well as most of our youth due the prevailing circumstances over here are conditioned to think in a way where government jobs are felt like the most secure option. Yet this notion was changing a slight bit, but first the situations arising here broke the spirit of entrepreneurship among the youth and now this COVID-19 is on a mission to get it completely erased from the mind and hearts of our youth, which is what is more worrying than the fact that the disease kills.
COVID-19 is not only dangerous to one’s body but also to the will and spirit of youth to do something better and change lives. It is deadly to creativity as well as to the faith in oneself to become a life changing entrepreneur. In terms of business and industrial development Kashmir’s numbers have been low ever since the era and situations of 1990s, it has taken us a decade to get to a point where our youth is finally starting to develop a notion of entrepreneurship as a way of being successful and happy in life.
But in the given conditions, our ideology is going backwards to the era where our youth would look for safe options than have a will and take risk to do something big. This pandemic has proven to be deadlier than many of the deadliest diseases we have ever come across, being locked up in house gives us enough time to think and then go in a process of overthinking things and make the conclusions that aren’t very healthy for a risk taking young mind to turn an idea into a big business opportunity.
For me in person coronavirus is more than a disease. It is an enemy that is compelling me to re-think my place and my source of income. It is making me have second guesses about why in the world did I even think of choosing to do a business whilst I knew the worst case scenario over here in Kashmir, and I am sure many of the young entrepreneurs are going through the same situations and thinking the same things. It’s like we are regretting the choice we made about our careers and now we think of ourselves as helpless people who took a risk to change their lives whereas nature opposed them.
Such are the times where young minds go into the deep overthinking process and end up being hopeless and lose their will to do something different, something big, and something better, and these are exactly the times where we should come forward address the issue and encourage the youth that you are not alone. We are going through the same things, we are suffering same losses and we are being targeted in terms of health, economy, finance and what not by this COVID-19 pandemic. So, it’s a high time that we keep our spirits higher than ever, and keep our will stronger than ever, and keep going, keep supporting each other through this calamity.
In these testing times I would like to address our youth through this piece of writing, I would like to let them know that their spirit and will of changing lives is far stronger and mightier than the disease that’s out there killing people, killing dreams and killing the opportunities to make our’s and other young people’s better than what they are and change the situations with new innovative ideas.
I would like to point out that our faith and our will matters and that is what will get us through these testing times if only we hold on tight to the rope of hope and will.