Just Some Write-Ups

  Hinashasan Workshop Panelists, Fellows, Lecturers, Moderators, and Other Attendees, a pleasant morning to you all! One of the most insightful write-ups I read about the pandemic came out in the first half of last year, as countries the world over slipped, like rapidly falling dominos, into lockdowns and various other restrictions. Besides calling out the Indian government for the inhumane way it enforced its pandemic protocols, Arundhati Roy’s “The Pandemic as a Portal” articulates a unique perspective on the crisis, one that’s particularly nuanced in the face of toxically positive rhetoric like “The planet is healing” or overtly negative opinions that interpreted COVID-19 as some sort of divine punishment. In Roy’s willfully optimistic view, the pandemic, besides being an obviously devastating event for many, is also a “gateway,” a chance for humanity to collectively gain insights that we can carry toward a potentially better, post-COVID world. The Book Prize–winning author e...