Some reflections

The PM talked from heart on his radio show Man ki Baat on Akshay Tritya. People really look forward to listening to him. He has proven his administrative capacities like a kind, considerate and wise patriarch of the family. In normal times, people bought gold on this occasion. Most of the festivals are symbolic of a larger reality that unfortunately lies hidden. Thus all we have is bland repetition. Buying of gold isn’t possible, but one can buy gold of the soul through selfless contribution to the PM Covid fund to help the poor. India usually is a massive thoroughfare of millions of small time hawkers and vendors operating through hand pulled carts, little temporary shelters, on pavements and many more tiniest means. They are gone. They dig a well daily to earn a living. They are the ones who are suffering for want of goods. The rest are suffering in mind basically because they have the food, shelter and clothing without any problem. High time that we start celebrating festivals in spirit now instead of just in letter through rot repetition of rituals. I expect the Indian society to become a kind and considerate one after the shadows of Covid 19 get dispelled from the stage of life and we emerge again to start playing our suspended innings awain. I hope all of us will be better players.    

A lime butterfly is braving hot dusty gusts of wind. A swirling, flirtatious little flying flower, challenging hot summers through its subtle feminine power of colors and fragrance. It seems like the long dead spring’s echo, a sentinel of colors, a dancing ounce of celestial beauty. There are flowers still, in all this baking it. All of them hold fort from the side of the spring. Dandelion garden weeds creep and smile from tiniest opportunities—mother earth’s blooming heart looking for any tiny nook corner to bloom—and hold forth the little sentry posts of wilderness even in man-managed gardens. A little story blossoms in a day. The tiny yellow flowers bloom in the morning and by the time sun reaches overhead, they are grey-headed old men with fluffy silvery parachute like seed-heads ready to go swirling in air for the propagation of free spirits and relaxing wilderness. A red-vented bulbul is taking luscious bites at duranta berries. They are poisonous for we humans, but may be they are good for them, otherwise they won’t touch them. They don’t eat out of gluttony or just curiosity. They simply eat what is eatable. A honeybee is busy on the buffet table of a creamy white guava blossom, the tiny little winged angel playing its part in a bigger process: nectar for herself, fruit for us and seeds for the tree. In the jasmine leaves, a cute oriental white eye is prying a swab of spider webs to use it as the building material for her little nest cup. All seems normal and routinely safe. We but have bigger problems, the creations of our mind-work. Our creation has gone too complex. Either we stop expecting the age old joy and live as a mechanical adaptation to what we have created, or we shift the fundaments of our life in sync with larger forces of nature.

Despite all the mayhem, to the tune of a third world war, mother nature appears to give a subtle message: Lockdown isn’t a total loss altogether; one can open another frontier of spirit where Corona cannot reach. One can go within to be a better version. All adversities have the hidden fruits of opportunities among the visible thorns and thickets. We have to salvage ours, but not by going out, rather by going into the house and then still inside, the inner journey. Once we establish that rapport with the self, we have a better chance of becoming makers instead of spoilers.

The Covid-19 cases in India are around 27000 with 900 deaths so far. We haven’t done enough testing to make Corona statistically gleeful, the critics may say. To make it more worrisome, ICMR says that 80 percent of the cases are asymptomatic, that is, the patient doesn’t show any symptoms. Despite the lockdown the figure is creeping recalcitrantly, the entire nation pulling in one direction and the tiny Corona in the other. We seem to have done better than many first world countries, simply because we have put human life first and economy second, more importantly, people have mostly volunteered to abide by PM Modi’s lockdown instruction despite tremendous suffering at many levels. People have accepted him a leader by heart. By following the governmental instructions, people are in fact contributing to nation building.

To give a communal spin to the Corona narrative, a burly female Muslim Corona patient is hugging the staff by force. The latter are panicked and making video to let it loose like a bomb in the media. ‘Allah is one!’ she is imploring. She is right theologically, but feeling of love and compassion is better saved for normal times. At this juncture, this compassionate goodwill gesture appears nothing sort of a war against the exploitative kafirs. Many Muslims actually think that they are being selectively targeted to be taken into quarantine. Funny, they behave like an injured sheep that is being taken for dressing, but raises a ruckus like it is being taken to a butchery. In Pakistan, the ulemas have said no to the lockdown conditions and are as zealous to have namaaz gatherings like before. I salute their religious zeal, but even god wants them to be careful using common sense. God wants them to open their eyes and be watchful. If Corona doesn’t actually spread in a mosque, as many hardcore zealots have claimed, then there will be many who will temporarily change communal affiliation to turn Muslim for the time being to escape from Corona.

Very rarely one finds people runny away from the bank notes. You see a few frounded bucks and ten hands get into action, even at the cost of getting trampled under slaying heels. Now you see the bills and legs get into action. People fly off the scene, lest the Corona sticking to the paper catches them. You invariably see the glint in people’s eyes whenever the prospect of a shilling landing in one’s hand from another hand arises. Now you see fear and suspicion whenever you get into the horrible situation of receiving money. You pray for online payments, where Corona cannot break the virtual frontiers. People hold the bills like a ticking time bomb. They abandon it in an untouchable corner of the house and run to wash their hands. How I wish we never had that liking for money in the first place. The fundamental nature of money surfaces: it’s unavoidable, but we have to keep our hands clean also. Keeping the conscience cleaner will be of further help. Elsewhere, there are almost daily instances of the patients misbehaving and even manhandling those who are trying to save their lives. Does Corona affect brain functioning also?

Judges have flown from the courts like rats from sinking ships. Corona doesn’t bother about the hammer strike of justice. It has its own court of summary verdict of death and disease, a kind of mass punishment for our collective miscalculations. The most urgent of cases have been but in the basket, even the ones that appear never to culminate and where Indian history’s biggest blunders are awaiting remedial measures. In any case, someone at least gets the good pat from the hand of law. In Rohtak, the court opens to facilitate the marriage of a local youth to a Mexican girl. They met on some online site. The state doesn’t want to leave any stone unturned in getting one youth married because here patriarchy has resulted in a sadly skewed sex ration, leaving many boys ineligible for marriage. Moreover, the gori bahu is a coveted one in this part and the administration goes out of its way to facilitate things, a hangover from the colonial times I suppose.

PM Modi has been ranked as the foremost Corona warrior leader in the world because of his handling of the situation. In social media, PM Modi’s meme are doing virtual rounds to encourage people in the fight through flight and hiding against the invisible enemy. Trump and Abe have in fact been given negative markings and are well below our PM. High time the world leadership learns to think in uneconomic terms sometimes, especially when precious lives are at stake.

Well, an ambulance on the road has acquired more might than a tank in battlefield. It commands respect because this is a health emergency, a medical war. But then you can never underestimate our eagerness to get into business, especially the jalebi type spiraled characters. An ambulance is caught. They are actually ferrying illegal wine instead of patients or medical supplies. I wonder they may even smuggle gold and drugs under a body on a hearse.

India is supplying Hydrochloroquine, the anti malarial drug touted by Trump as the Sanjivani against the evil Corona, to 55 countries. It appears to have helped the patients; now but there are reports that it also leaves an adverse impact on the patient’s heart. Another little disappointment after the tiny sip of euphoria.

The people from the entertainment industry must be in the most depressive moods because the world they thrive in doesn’t exist any longer. Now the celebrities themselves are cooking, washing, cleaning, cribbing and are caged in like any x, y, z fan of theirs. The fall of celebrity status. When people can’t be even their own best versions, forget about them running in a dreamy world to be a super-fan of someone. That world has vanished temporarily. There are no heroes and heroines except the doctors, paramedics, policemen and volunteers busy in the war against Corona. You have thousands of real life heroes, so people hardly care about the virtual heroes. A bigger movie with real character is being played.  

The nature throws her nano-meter size googlie and all those, whether front-foot smart masters or back-foot labor-like sloggers, get clean bowled. All walk back to the pavilion with a sad look. The front-foot enthusiasts enjoy Mahabharat and the back-foot apprehenders take solace in Ramayan. The bails are scattered on the grounds and wickets broken. The biggest economic recession in the past 100 years is building up. But not more people are dying of hunger at the moment. It means the problem is never about needs. It is always about the greed. The problem is about more and more, not about basics. The grotesque monetization of our rampant ambitions gets hit in a recession, nothing else.  The loss is in the virtual economic quarters. On the plane of reality, we have the same number of grains and the same mouths to feed to stay alive. The US crude oil price falls below zero dollars price. The tower of greed falls in a recession, but it crushes many at the base also, the consequences. As China builds up storage of grain through vigorous grain imports, a famine may build up, giving them many more strings to pull in the international markets. But an object of ire by many is always prone to lose in the long run. They will realize it in the coming years.  

A new aesthetic and caring aspect of administration shines with pleasant vividness. Migrant laborers, who couldn’t reach their homes hundreds of kilometers away, are locked up at a dharamshala at Palwal. Of course, the district administration is trying its level best to give them food and shelter. A human being but needs more than that. In the sprawling garden, set up in neat rows, sitting at safe distances, they watch a magician performance. He takes milk in a little vial. ‘This is one case of Corona,’ he holds the little bit of milk. Mixes the contents into a bigger glass. The contents become more to fill up the bigger container. ‘If that person doesn’t listen to the government, he infects more like this glass,’ he admonishes. He pours it into a still bigger tumbler and again it gets filled up. ‘Those more infected cases infected more and more people,’ there is a message  for them. They understand and clap. These are little workshops where the crude layer of insensitivity born of fight to survive is being peeled off to help them see a better way of thinking. It will help them in the long run.

There are lone wolves who cannot keep their personal miseries in them. They have some hidden angst and spit it out as the stream of miseries rushes past against each and every foot around. The CCTV footages have grabbed such vindictive moments. The fruit vendors are seen spitting on fruits before selling them. How long one can stay safe? After all, one has to surrender a bit of self-defense network, and that is where the chink gets opened. It breeds insecurity. If you learn to ignore, well and good, but if you are worrying kind, then God help you!

The CCTV may grab these saddening moments, but what goes undetected is the mob thrashing the people of a particular community, just because a few fools have maligned all of them. Migrant Muslim artisans, who are staying at a place for more than a decade, are scared of getting out and being caught by a crowd. Unfortunately, the pathetic conduct of a few thousand Markaz Jamaatis has cast a shadow of doubt over the entire Muslim population. Now people get scared whenever they see a Muslim out in the open. They think it might be someone wandering as a Corona terrorist! Corona in its communal form is really dangerous. Not to be left behind, the OIC countries have condemned the recent developments in India and raised concern over the present Islamophobic trend in India. The cabinet minister for minority affairs has refuted the charge and said India is a heaven for minorities. The OIC has a right to espouse the cause of Islam anywhere in the world. But where are they when millions of Uighur Muslims get imprisoned in concentration camps in China. Religion is hardly the criterion for condemnation. It is decided by so many economic and foreign diplomacy matters. But it is very easy to dupe illiterate unsuspecting Muslims through craftily hatched narratives.

Indian doctors are using the plasma therapy. Plasma of recovered patients is tansfused into the active patients to help them fight the evil. As we see, 80% cases are asymptomatic, so those carriers whose immunity is higher may be safe but they can spread it to the people with lesser immunity and that is where the real risk lies.

The WTO has turned a puppet of China. Its chief is reading out almost communist party press releases issued from Beijing. He just doesn’t spare any chance to save China of any wrongdoing in the pandemic. International institutions are up for a big shaking once things settle down.

The people in Western culture love their freedom and liberty. They are feeling victimized under the lockdown. They are itching to jump onto the stage of life and pursue the same age old materialistic lifestyle. Not too many lessons appear to be noticed even in the face of such tragedy! People in America protest and defy lockdown with placards reading ‘My Body My Choice’. Little do they realize that it’s no longer my body, it is about our health. Corona will find it easy to beat down such a divided house. In Brazil, it even turns into a parody. The President himself jumps onto an open jeep, without mask or gloves, and protests against the lockdown in support of the crowd that is baying for some unknown authority’s blood that has clamped lockdown. They want their jobs. They cannot see beyond the little confines of self interest. Earlier people fought to die for their nations. Now people cannot even co-operate to stay safe. Nobody is asking them to fight and risk life, now to be a soldier means just to keep hiding. If the champions of liberalism continue for free movement like this, it may open far more vulnerable fronts for the enemy. God forbid if Corona plagues Africa! Many African countries have just one ventilator for three million people. One just shudders to even think of the consequences!

Yogi Adityanath shows rajadharma by not attending his father’s funeral. The CM didn’t break the lockdown measures. Well, we have the grooming of a future PM of India under tough circumstances!