While there might be some lingering doubts about Time magazine’s selection of US President-elect Joseph R Biden and his Vice-President Kamala Harris as “Persons of the Year,” we, along with many others, feel that the “people of the year” are the frontline medical workers risking their lives for the sake of others. But there is little doubt about the “word of the year,” which both Dictionary.Com and Merriam-Webster have awarded to the “pandemic.” And that is appropriate because how many people used or knew of that term unless they were Hollywood screen writers until the Coronavirus upended everyone’s lives in 2020? Even as the news of advancement in the trial of vaccines brings some cheer across the world, we are still far away from vanquishing the virus that has permanently changed the lives of us all. And there is no guarantee that “vaccination” will be the word of the year in 2021. We are still a long way from having a significant number of people being vaccinated against the virus for it to be effective among a large population and the world has learnt a lesson about the need for hygiene in all our lives.

But how else will 2020 be remembered decades from today? Will we talk about this being the year where “social distancing” became the norm and online education really took off? Or will we remember 2020 as the year that several social constructs broke down once and for all and set the ball rolling on the path to revolution across many nations? Will 2020 be the year where we reset everything altogether, everything becomes “Before Pandemic” (BP) and “After Pandemic” (AP)? We will have to wait and watch but make no mistake, 2020 will be the most memorable year of our lives even if it was a year in which we all did almost nothing. Of course, it allowed us buffer time to re-orient ourselves, evolve and survive in new contexts and circumstances. Maybe 2021 will offer us some hope and we can break out of the thesaurus and learn some new words for hope and expectations. It can’t be this bad again next year? Or can it?

While there might be some lingering doubts about Time magazine’s selection of US President-elect Joseph R Biden and his Vice-President Kamala Harris as “Persons of the Year,” we, along with many others, feel that the “people of the year” are the frontline medical workers risking their lives for the sake of others. But there is little doubt about the “word of the year,” which both Dictionary.Com and Merriam-Webster have awarded to the “pandemic.” And that is appropriate because how many people used or knew of that term unless they were Hollywood screen writers until the Coronavirus upended everyone’s lives in 2020? Even as the news of advancement in the trial of vaccines brings some cheer across the world, we are still far away from vanquishing the virus that has permanently changed the lives of us all. And there is no guarantee that “vaccination” will be the word of the year in 2021. We are still a long way from having a significant number of people being vaccinated against the virus for it to be effective among a large population and the world has learnt a lesson about the need for hygiene in all our lives.

But how else will 2020 be remembered decades from today? Will we talk about this being the year where “social distancing” became the norm and online education really took off? Or will we remember 2020 as the year that several social constructs broke down once and for all and set the ball rolling on the path to revolution across many nations? Will 2020 be the year where we reset everything altogether, everything becomes “Before Pandemic” (BP) and “After Pandemic” (AP)? We will have to wait and watch but make no mistake, 2020 will be the most memorable year of our lives even if it was a year in which we all did almost nothing. Of course, it allowed us buffer time to re-orient ourselves, evolve and survive in new contexts and circumstances. Maybe 2021 will offer us some hope and we can break out of the thesaurus and learn some new words for hope and expectations. It can’t be this bad again next year? Or can it?