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This is my soul and the world unwinding, this is my heart in the still winter air. Finally whispering the same two words over and over: “Keep walking. Keep walking. Keep walking.”
Jeevan survives the pandemic due to foresight and perseverance. He receives an early warning call from a friend and immediately acts on the advice to begin preparations. Although the flu is still a new phenomenon, and most people don’t yet understand the gravity of the situation, Jeevan predicts that the flu will split his world into a before and an after – while he can’t know the extent of the damage the flu will cause, he does know that it will be a massive event. Despite the horror of seeing everyone dying around him, Jeevan is a person who is led by an inner urge to be prepared to save the day. This trait keeps him “walking” and surviving while many others succumb to the pandemic.
At moments when other people could only stare, he wanted to be the one to step forward.
Before the pandemic, Jeevan wanted to be a paramedic. When Arthur has a heart attack on stage, Jeevan performs CPR. Although it doesn’t save Arthur, Jeevan realizes that he is invigorated by performing live-saving procedures and isn’t frightened by high-stress situations. These traits not only help him survive the flu and its aftermath but also lead him to become a doctor in the new world. Despite the horrors of the pandemic, it results in Jeevan having the life he wanted but didn’t yet have: in the new world, he becomes a medic and finds a wonderful partner, both accomplishments that he hadn’t reached pre-pandemic.
He was a small, insignificant thing, drifting down the shore. He had never felt so alive or so sad.
In this passage, Jeevan describes what is a shared human experience, magnified ten-fold. Most people understand the feeling of loneliness that comes from being an individual with a completely unique mind and life, as well as the cosmic insignificance of being a mortal creature in a vast universe. These experiences often result in heightened feelings of sorrow—because that loneliness is a permanent feature of being a conscious being—but also heightened feelings of aliveness—because the intense awareness of our own mortality increases our sensitivity to what we are feeling and experiencing in the moment. Jeevan, who is escaping from a dying city where his brother has recently committed suicide, has never been more alone or more aware of his aliveness, and how easily he could lose that life.
Even after all these years there were moments when he was overcome by his good fortune at having found this place, this tranquility, this woman, at having lived to see a time worth living in.
Jeevan’s peaceful and fulfilling life in the new world shows there is hope for humanity, and that individuals can still find happiness despite the incredible losses that have occurred. Although surviving the pandemic was traumatic, Jeevan manages to build the exact life that he wanted but didn’t have in the old world—he becomes a medic, his dream profession which he never achieved pre-pandemic, and also is in a committed relationship with a loving partner, whereas before the flu he was in a failing relationship with an emotionally unavailable partner. Helives a relatively happy life that is generally removed from violence, although he’s prepared to help and save lives if it comes to that. Jeevan’s character is a symbol of hope and survival who proves that we can prevail in dark times.
