FIGHT AGAINST COVID19

Being a member of research fraternity, everyone is committed to serve
their people through their innovative ideas. It was an opportunity of
pride to help our nation, our people through some regular laboratory
techniques which somehow proved to be significant. Being associated
with a lab which has expertise in this area of RT-PCR, RNA-isolation
was an immense pleasure because it is very well said you learn from your
surrounding and in this case it was so true. Everyone from my lab
worked with diligence for this work from standardizing the protocol to
doing the testing and reporting it in a prescribed format. There were
many instances of them which made me feel happy to work with full
enthusiasm and dedication like promptly standing for volunteering,
getting a relief when your work is accomplished, failures of full-day long
testing then too starting it with a fresh, above all they did everything
without any recognition on all grounds because all they wanted to do
was giving their best in their field for their people.
Now when it comes to me, it was merely a small contribution in the form of
reporting the testing conducted at BSL-3 in prescribed format assigned
to us with patient’s details and results available. I was a beginner in this
scientific field as well as in this COVID 19 testing. It was a great
experience because the idea of doing something that is at the finishing level
is so important to represent your all long day work. It is a responsibility
because it is a collective effort of many from collecting the samples
from the respective area to testing and providing you with the result. What
matters is that there are many handworks which you will portray through
your reporting, a trust from people out there waiting for your institute
declaration makes you more alert of what you are doing. Though it was
a monotonous and tedious type of work but it somehow gave me peaceful sleep at night. There were times when somehow I have to stop
my work and do this or just manage both of them, it was difficult for me
at first but now I have learned multitasking with full efficiency. To make
the reporting error-free we used to cross-check everything twice with our guide because whatsoever you do, give 100% to avoid any
mishappenings.
This pandemic brought a various transformation in terms of thinking as a
researcher and as a person in me which includes:

1. Multi-tasking with full efficiency- managing your work with
   something different from your field makes your brain think more and more, enables you to manage things properly and efficiently.
2. Knowledge is never wasted- being a part of an institute where RT-PCR,
   RNA isolation etc are regular work helped in developing a center for
   sample testing of COVID 19 suggests that if you learn something today or later, you never know how it can help the society.
3. Work with a cause-Analyzing your strengths in your scientific field
   with some technique or idea or theory which might help society will be a great thing, you can give.
4. Sense of responsibility- When you work on any given area its is your
   prime duty to give your best because someone trusted you and assigned you something that is of utmost importance so it gives you a sense of responsibility for your task to be good.

In the end, I would like to say that, I was lucky enough to be a part of
this fight against SARS-CoV-2 pandemic which not only helped me to
grow but also gave me a chance to serve my nation, my people with
some little efforts and yes definitely giving me a time that is priceless.

-Khushboo Mehta
-Research scholar, CSIR Imtech