WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

The Bernama News Agency reports on June 12, 2020 2:08 PM:

KUALA LUMPUR: After months of working hard fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, a surgeon, is back again to the operating room.

“Each day brings new lessons and challenges for us to prepare for the worst, and I am amazed by the ingenuity, strength and creativity being demonstrated by our frontline workers."

“As the pandemic crisis unfolds, it has taught us many valuable lessons of unity and solidarity. The onus is on us to take all precautionary measures and maintain good personal hygiene,” he said on Facebook.

Noor Hisham said because of the pandemic, he and the frontliners were able to connect with each other better and continue to work to explore new ideas and innovations.

“We are in our recovery phase. However, the real challenge starts now for the rakyat (public) to comply with the SOP."

“The rakyat can make the impossible possible as there is now hope and light at the end of the tunnel to end the Covid-19 transmission,” he said.

Noor Hisham appears on television at 5pm every day, giving much-awaited Covid-19 updates and related news.

We thank him, his team, the other uniform forces, and the majority of the public who cooperated and helped contain the pandemic and flatten the curve. The medical personals have always been on my list of gratitude after the divine and the divine masters, my parents, and ancestors. 

Today I spoke to my 3-year-old granddaughter about appreciating the work that the garbage collector does as the garbage truck drove by the neighborhood collecting rubbish. I told her to imagine the stench and disease that would spread if the garbage is not collected for days. I chanced to watch a short story revolving around a garbage collector and his son. The son watching the residents in his village despise and shun his father for the nature of work he does eventually appreciates the good that his father does in preventing outbreaks of diseases. If the doctors attend to the public after a pandemic, an outbreak, or when patients visit them, the garbage collectors prevent the outbreak of such diseases by collecting and disposing of it, keeping the neighborhood clean.

A break in the food chain could upset the ecology and ecosystem. As all plants are producers, the food chain always starts with a green plant that is eaten by an animal, regarded as the consumer. The food chain ends with a predator that is at the top of the food chain. A food web is several food chains connected together. Behind this food chain lies the importance of the sun for without the sun the plants would not grow; without plants, there would be no animals. (Source: http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/foodchains.htm).

Source: https://www.siyavula.com/

Similarly, there are many people in professions and careers, who play an important role however minute it may be, in keeping us safe. To all these people we thank them for their contribution to society. They are a much needed and appreciated sector in society. Similarly, we have had many individuals who played a significant role in all our events, not as officials who come to grace and officiate functions but who worked behind the curtains and behind the stage to ensure all the programs and events we planned went on without any hitches. To them, I take a moment to thank and show my gratefulness for always being there in the moments of need.

These days I have begun to accept, as Agathiyar says that there is no right or wrong in anything. It all depends on the context or its usage. A knife can be used to cut vegetables or stab another. Fire can cook food or burn us. Water can quench our thirst or drown us. Air keeps us alive but could kill us if polluted. Medicine could make us recover or put us to sleep if taken in high doses. Drugs could either save or kill a person. It is we who determine its use. Man has been given a very great responsibility. He can save the world or destroy it. Agathiyar enlightens us on our responsibilities towards our creator, family, ancestors, fellow humans, animals, plants, and even the mineral kingdom through his 5 tenets that he presented at the Tamil Sangam.

Agathiyar's revelation was an eyeopener for us. We can make a difference indeed.