‘Kindness to strangers was at its zenith all over the world’ – 20 quotes from India’s pandemic struggle

Launched in 2014, StoryBites is a weekly feature from YourStory, featuring notable quotable quotes in our articles of this past week (see the previous edition here). This special series of compilations focuses on India’s COVID-19 struggle. Share these quotes and excerpts with your networks, and check back to the original articles for more insights.

See also our pick of Top Quotes of 2021 on Entrepreneurship, Investment, Digital Transformation, Storytelling, The India Opportunity, Pandemic Resilience, Failure Recovery, Design, and Art.

Comprehensive healthcare is very important. We have just realised how important it has been in the last couple of years during the pandemic. – Taslimarif Saiyed, C-CAMP

Crematoriums have emerged as one of the primary sources of air pollution in recent years, particularly during the severe COVID crisis that saw a sharp increase in funeral ceremonies. - Shantanu Sonaikar, Pi Green Innovations

During the last two years of COVID, the world learned to adapt quickly, ushering in the rise of telehealth services, medical apps, and platforms, and these tools allowed doctors to fulfil their duties of saving lives. - Prateek Verma, Tata 1mg

The shift in mindset that we see today, especially when it comes to acceptance of digital technology in the healthcare space, happened as a result of COVID. - Aparna Sathianathan, CoronaSafe Network

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All stakeholders, doctors, patients, government, pharmaceuticals, and medical device firms wanted to move to digital. They have all accepted that. - Sandeep Gudibanda, HealthPlix

COVID has created a long-term consumer behaviour shift towards a healthier lifestyle. And that is great for overall humanity. - Tushar Vashisht, HealthifyMe

What demonetisation did to digital payments in the country, COVID-19 did for healthcare and specifically for remote health and remote patient management. - Vishal Gondal, GOQii

The modern world reacted to the pandemic, not just with edge tools and traditional ways. It mounted a fierce counter-attack using data. - Ajeya Motaganahalli, Pure Storage

In the summer of 2022 we scaled up our D2C business and at the same time we collaborated with Disney to launch a new air cooler collection for kids rooms. - Achal Bakeri, Symphony Limited

Our own employees were sick, everybody was in a hurry, everyone was anxious, the rules were changing by the hour. - Ameera Shah, Metropolis Healthcare

Pandemic era has forced us to digitise and hence improved the customer experience as well. - Saurabh Arora, Plum

Post the second COVID-19 wave, the [lending] business took off substantially as the term collaboration came into play in a massive form. - Harshvardhan Lunia, Lendingkart

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[Year in Review 2021] How women entrepreneurs pivoted during the pandemic and saw tangible results

One of the best decisions I took during [the pandemic] was to not reduce my team or not cut salaries. - Rutu Mody Kamdar, Jigsaw Brand Consultants

Amazon has given us rock solid support at every juncture – from infrastructure, to technology, to medical benefits for workers infected with COVID-19. - Jamuna Rani, Sarini Associates

Despite the pandemic, we have developed an impeccable track record and trust across our partners in 2021 and look to double down on our co-lending model in FY23. - Siddharth Mahanot, Indifi

It is amply clear that the hybrid mode of education, especially for working professionals, is here to stay and comes with lots of advantages. - Nisha Butoliya, Azim Premji University

Online teaching was a luxury before COVID-19 but during the pandemic, online learning became a requirement. - Seethaprasad Mandikel, TriByte technologies

The pandemic-led lockdown gave rise to creators and professionals who made themselves popular with the increasing digital adoption. - Vipin Pungalia, Sennheiser

[Blue collar placements] is a sunrise sector and came into the limelight during COVID. - Balamurugan Sundararajan, Kaigal

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Now that we seem to be coming out of the pandemic era, cartoonists are bursting forth with more energy. - VG Narendra, IIC

We started out during the pandemic as more people took to gardening as a hobby. We have seen more than 2X growth since we started. - Tanvi Agarwal, Bombay Greens

[The pandemic] has also allowed millennials to explore the [astrology] category with repeatable use. - Sanil Sachar, Huddle

I think the first responders during the pandemic were ordinary citizens and the civil society – neighbours helping neighbours. Kindness to strangers was at its zenith all over the world. - Rohini Nilekani, 'Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar'

YourStory has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).