Lets be thankful: In these challenging times
Picture: ‘The plague at Ashdod’ by Nicolas Poussin (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Historians and scholars from different eras point their fingers at AD 536 as the worst year for mankind. It is said that AD 536 was the coldest year in the last 2300 years. What caused it were the multiple volcanic eruptions that engulfed half of the globe in darkness, whereupon a massive dark cloud prevented the sun’s heat from reaching the earth’s ground. This drastically lowered temperatures all over the world, preventing natural heat and sunlight - affecting agriculture. Imagine not being able to figure out night and day (there were no timepieces then), as it was perpetually dark whilst starving to death and freezing in the cold. This darkness, it is reported, lasted for 18 months, so AD 536 was a living hell - with nearly half the then world’s population wiped out.
I am therefore thankful that 2020 is by no means comparable to AD 536 – although it has jolted us humans to revisit the way we take things for granted.
At a time when the coronavirus has destroyed conventional life as we knew it – which in certain aspects was a door that begged to be knocked down, I have come to realise that small comforts matter more than ever.
I am thankful to those in the restaurant industry - especially for the enormous resilience some have shown, despite the pervading gloom and doom, to keep fighting and to stay in business. In short, they have enabled us to eat restaurant food without eating in a restaurant. As we, more or less, stayed put at home, these small joys made our ‘safety above all’ kinda ‘house arrest’ lifestyle less unbearable.
The survivors in the restaurant business have adapted swiftly, ramping up curbside pickup and by demonstrating a greater adaption of food and home delivery apps. Interestingly, what COVID-19 has done is to transform, within a few months, the home delivery business to a new high – something that was projected to take years to happen. Some reckon that consumer spend is being pulled forward – thanks to the accelerated growth from delivery platforms.
Likewise, I feel fortunate as a consumer to be able to support the local food scene, and to an extent the country’s economy. In fact, I feel that like thousands of other consumers, we have done our bit, to provide support and relief for restaurants, to continue to employ people and to feed those of us who are locked in at our homes, or who have restrictions on moving around.
Companies should thankfully look at these developments as an opportunity to build loyalty among new users, because COVID-19 has pushed self-service to a greater number of people. Pre-pandemic, restaurants, particularly those belonging to chain operators, spent massively, on advertising campaigns featuring ‘free’ items to lure people to use the app. The pandemic has done it – for free.
I am thankful that the home delivery service started to grow in the nick of time, providing us with old and new takeout options to steer our taste buds out of their routine. There are some dishes my wife and I no longer want to make, but always want to eat, particularly, the local specialties’ that’s always nice to occasionally indulge in. However, I am not thankful to those who arbitrarily raise prices after capturing a desperately captive market. To me that stinks of taking undue advantage to ‘profiteer’ from a bad situation.
Whilst it has been a torrid year, certainly one of sheer despair, I hope 2020 will go out with a bang and that we will see the back of COVID-19 and its sting soon thereafter. Eventually, everyone may well have the opportunity to get that vaccine, and return to their tables.
That however, is yet another story waiting to be told
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, ‘Hospitality Sri Lanka’, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-hotelier
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The Byzantine and Persian empires lived through an outbreak of bubonic plague in the 541AD.