Ravi Kumar thought he had his life sorted. By 2019, his younger sister was married, his parents were settled in Bengaluru, and he was well ensconced in a banking career in Mumbai, happy with his compact family of wife and two young kids.
An apartment in Mumbai, a decent corpus in FDs, some investments in equity and gold were enough to tide him over the future. Till 2020 began and life showed up its uncertainties in full force. Ravi still holds a job, but the shadow of a furlough looms. He needs to bolster the savings he has been putting aside for his kids’ education and marriage in view of the ‘New Normal’ that is emerging. He has never been worried about his own health but the pandemic has upended everyone’s beliefs about life and the future.
The pandemic was supposed to peak, plateau and then taper off. However, with no sign of a vaccine or definitive treatment on the horizon, the…