There isn’t enough steam left in the tottering
economy to go for another costly blockbuster sequel, Lockdown 5.0. So for
economic redemption, they are going for Unlock series. Phase one of Unlock gets
on the way from June 1. The soldiers will come out of the trench, cautiously
avoiding the Corona booby-traps, looking this way and that way like a scared
hare lest the sniper shot travels through the hurts, lungs rater because the
Corona bullet slays lungs primarily. One cannot win a war by forever hiding in
the trenches. Living itself means taking calculated risks.
The market in the town appears shaken terribly like broken
palm fronds on a cyclone struck coast. It will take hell lot of courage on the
part of even the most money-crazy trader to come out of the trench and start
with the same relish for money, especially when people run to wash hands after
touching currency like it’s a sin. It will surely take a few months for things
to get normal. The train has been completely derailed. It ran too fast and for
too long. Nature intervenes to insert pause.
Dostoevsky: “Stupidity is of as much service to
humanity as the loftiest genius.” We have lost the trail of our glorious
stupidity while imprisoned at homes. The driving force of our civilization, our
fabulous puzzlement of stupidities has paused and so has the chugging, huffing,
steam-spewing engine of progress and development. This mad rush defines our
being alive. Without it we hardly appear like human beings. We look more
miserable without our miserable rut of life. A sort of addiction we have!
Political croaking is swiftly overtaking the Corona
chorus in media now. Well, it reminds me of a particular political system. Which
political system do you think is inherently the enemy of true life and living?
Some clues to the answer: they are the sworn enemies of freedom and individuality;
they are the rascally advocates of a glorified mediocrity; propagators of an
abominable shallowness; and the dark Angels of some grossly hypothetical
equality minus individual freedom and dignity.
Tell friends, tell! I hope most of you have guessed
it right. They prune the roots of individuality like one does with the potted
oaks. The roots are repeatedly cut to keep the bonsai alive, stunted, well
below the full blossoming mark to avail a subservient species. Communism does
the same.
The population in China is QR-coded like they are
lifeless products stuffed in a swanky mall. This kind of digital surveillance
allows the authorities to scan each and every aspect of the citizens’ lives
such as where did they go, which transport they used, what they wore, what they
ate, with whom they did go, how much they spent, etc., etc.
All US—the land of individual assertion to optimize
the full potential—needs to take an edge in the cute war is to puncture
Huawei’s tentacles over the global communication network. The speed of the red
car will slow down with one main wheel getting punctured. Keep your missiles
safe and fire phrases like Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, human rights, Uyghur
Muslims, Panchen Lama to name a few. A political system strictly defined by the
sanctified lines in the red book gets terribly ruffled by disturbing phrases
which appear sacrilegious to the biggest hypothetical dream trapped in the tiny
funny book.
Ruskin Bond says, “To be able to laugh and to be
merciful are the only things that make man better than the beast.” How will
such stunted spirits laugh? In gross standardization for the base level cut
down equality, how will mercy survive as an emotion? Mercy thrives in an
environment of freedom. Ever-watchful state system might create material
prosperity but it quashes the spirit and breeds misery of the spirit. And
miserable spirits hardly can be merciful. Does it mean communism is basically
to dehumanize people, to make them nearer to animals than what we know ourselves
as Homo sapiens?
Ruskin Bond: "It's unlucky to call a tiger a
tiger. My father always told me so. But if you meet a tiger, and call him
uncle, he will leave you alone."
Well, given the arrogance and attitude of all and
sundry that I see around, everyone should be addressed as "uncle" by
me. I find them adorned with the majestic pride of a tiger. But problem arises
with men in late thirties and early forties. They are the real claimants of the
title of uncle, but the moment I address them as uncle, I mean tiger, they turn
a rampaging bull, ready to trample me to death.
Corona you may keep spreading the guttery stench, I
have feathered fragrance. An emotion can be far stronger than tons of muscles
and physicality. Spreading the fragrance and colors of the land of paradise
amidst the burning plains of North India, Kashmiri Gulab! It has delicious smell
and its pink color and paradisiacal smell outshine the deadliest blaze of
summer sun.
The Juggernaut of Corona has left soot, saplings,
plants and trees trampled all along the way. We cry over the loss of mainstream
trees and crops. There are wayside weeds also that might be inconsequential
from the point of view of our economy, but for Mother Nature they are as good
as any high value cash crop. In the mainstream demography, the stateless
citizens, the wandering nomads, are like wayside worthless weeds. They too have
their share of loss, just that their loss is almost no loss on the economic
scale.
Out of movement, out of petty trade, out of steam,
the gypsy caravan is stuck up at a place for the last 3 months. Of all other
deprivation and drudgery, they sorely miss their only right, the right to move.
These are the intangible losses that would never be counted among the category
of Corona losses by the mainstream society.
In 500 years since they took a vow never to settle
down at one place after their leader Maharana Pratap lost to Akbar, these
nomadic iron smith tribals have moved on the fringes of the mainstream society.
They didn't compromise with their freedom and said a firm no to Akbar's offer
of a settlement. Meanwhile, modern civilization contrived rockets. As change is
inevitable, the gypsy rate of change is pleasantly swooning. The ornate, wooden
ox cart is now being slowly replaced by the bike rikshaw. The jostling
civilization scattered around is pushing and prodding them a bit harder to
force them to move faster on their endless path.
Nearby, the sunshine gets strangulated and caught in
high-tension electricity wires and mammoth metallic banyans supporting them to pin
a hole in the skies, the wings of these free birds catch fire and they try to
fly away and drop one by one.
The nomadic cattle herders who wander around with
their hundreds of famished, huge-horned, bony cows now set out with tottering
steps like the creaking water wheel over a dry well. How did they even survive
while no movement was allowed? The cows scraped dry grass out of dust on a
wasteland. Their dung lies littered like jackals poop, so small and miserable.
The herder has a flaming red huge headgear, almost a crown of thorn. His gypsy
shirt tightly squeezes his slim torso and the windblown dhoti sways like the
torn, raggish pal on a lost ship. There they go escaping the desert sands, the nomadic
herders from Rajasthan. Dust here means better pastures to them. How I wish we
get used to be contented with what we have!
There has been torrential rain quite unexpected for
the season bringing down the temperature to 30 maximum from 46. The honeybees
take rest from their death-defying attempt at fetching water to cool the hives.
Mother Nature has spewed enough water for two days at least. So they don’t
return just out of habit. Theirs is a world that is strictly defined by basic
needs. We humans nurture habits out of basic needs, which quickly leads to our
typical greed.
In the forest a honey badger is devilishly
tenacious. An elephant may surely crush it like an ant, but the little stubborn
rascal will stand on its way till the last breath. A jackal flip-flops among
cowardice, caution and cunningness. Two extreme characteristics in two species.
They test their skills in the game of rope pulling. Unluckily for the poor
python, there was no rope in the forest for the contestants. So they used a
python instead! As a common man I feel like being pulled in all directions by
the smarter species. Poor migrant workers returning on foot on their hundreds
of miles long march of misery is the mammoth, fat python that is now being
pulled and hunted by the political hunters to get bellyfuls of political pie.
In a tribal hamlet in Gujarat, far away from the
maddening crowd and its still madder Corona offshoots, an old tribal woman
drags a huge Kobra. A jittery forest official is lucky to shoot the scene on
his mobile. She holds it inconsequentially like it’s a junk piece to be dragged
out of the habitation. She walks like performing daily chores, holding the poor
devil by tail, the latter clueless about what to do and what not. She drags it
across the street without even looking behind. The deadly snake throws its hood
in desperation along the crowd. She then simply throws it away like an unwanted
unusable piece of old rope. The toothless wisdom of a grand-mom: A rope and a
cobra are the same as long as your fingers don't discriminate between the two
while holding!
Since
the start of the Lockdown blockbuster series, there have been 5 occasions when
mild earthquake tremors hit the Delhi NCR. Corona forces us to stay inside the
box, and mother earth then shakes it to see us toppling out like scared mice.
Five mild tremors in such short time doesn’t portend well. Geologically it may
mean a big earthquake is waiting in the wings in the area. Moreover, crores of
locusts are hovering in the northern skies like the nefarious enemy drones to
chuck out crops. God knows what else this 2020 has in its store to stump us!
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