Happy New Year

 An other year passed with anxiety and fear.

What to do to increase immunity?
Which place to skip to avoid crowd?
Where the vaccine slots are available?
When to take the boosters?
When the anti-viral pills will come?
Will this new normal change ever?

Most mornings started with "are you guys able to hear me".
Talking in length and then realized the mute button was on.
And sometime the mute button stops working when a gossip was going on.
"Have to drop off because I have a conflicting meeting" has become the buzz all around.
And attending multiple meetings at one time has become humanely possible now.

Alpha, beta, gamma, delta and the 'little o' (o-micron), the greek alphabets are the new fear files.
With gaining usual knowledge and finding other knowhow,
through-out the year, everyone has become a virologist till now.
Grief, sorrow, ecstatic, bliss, had their own part to play.
But we kept going, paving our own way.

I don't know whether I have learnt to live the new way of life.
But the new normal is not the normal I love.
With the dawn of the new year, my yearning desire for the old normal is all time high.
And I wish...
I wish this year the faces in the malls, shops will be more than eyes with masks.
I wish this year mornings will be about quick breakfast and searching the car keys.
I wish this year I will book a flight home without worrying the greek alphabets.
I wish this year there will be actual potlucks and not virtual meet-ups.
I wish this year will bring solace all around.

With this hope,

I wish you all a very happy new year..

                                                                                                        - H M Badruzzaman