A small sunbeam in a dark cellar

 

Corona is having a feisty lunch, engorging on the delightful range of our fear and phobia. Daubed with the strains of some dark spirit, it’s spawning a pretty depressive spectrum. Well, to add to our worries, these last days of April aren’t hot enough to help us bake Corona. Unseasonal showers keep temperatures below the benchmark. Corona appears to have allies somewhere. How I wish all of us could sneak into some safe place where the mind is without fear!

Osho tells a beautiful story about fear. A Yogi following the path of fearlessness set up his hut high in the mountains. In deep forests and complete isolation he did his tapasya. His fame started trickling down the hills like rainwater did through the ravines. The people accepted him as a siddha because he was no longer afraid of the wild animals and inclement weather elements. A young man wanting to follow the same path reached him for diksha. They were talking and a big lion roared nearby. The young man began shivering with fear. The Yogi laughed and said you have too much fear in you, making you almost ineligible for the path. The young man accepted his fear openly. After some time, the master got up and went into the cave to do something. The young man wrote a few holy hymns on the rock the holy man was sitting on. On returning, as he was about to step onto the rock, the Yogi’s foot shook with horror. He was within a fraction of a second to commit blasphemy by stepping on a holy hymn. He was terrified. Now the young man roared with laughter. ‘You are as fearful as me, just that your objects of fear are virtual, mine are at least real,’ the young man told the sage.

Most of us believe that fearlessness is in direct proportion to one’s spiritual evolution. We believe that the obsession with self preservation plummets down in proportion to the rise in awareness. Little do we realize that for one gram of real physical fears shed from our being, we nurture and add kilograms of virtual fears, the fears of religion, of blind conventions, institutionalized faith, of our image that we have built and the consequent fear to maintain it. Physical threat born fears are ingrained in our biology; psychological fears are what we have built up and are profoundly anchored in our minds.

Speaking of fear reminds me of snakes. We are plainly scared of snakes. Our forefathers must have been bitten fatally in the forests. We have this collective paranoid fear of snakes, so much so that we even forget that 90% of them are non-venomous to humans. But then to us the word snake strikes as a collective noun, a symbol of all our real and assumed fears. It doesn’t matter if it is a Kobra or a little harmless worm that can hardly do any damage to the human system. Yes caution regarding snakes is one thing, but paranoid fear of them is totally another. Not many of us have been exposed to a life threatening situation against a snake, still the sight of a snake, from the cutest to the most lethal, triggers the same chemicals of plain, unadulterated fear into our system. Simply because up and down the ladder of our evolution we have added to the virtual fears regarding them.

A common wolf snake is a little snake that feeds on skinks and other little prays found near homes, so the poor little thing sneaks into houses as well during its reptilian feasting. Its reptilian status makes it lethal, not its feeble venom. It has vibrant soft pink color and artistic white patterns, making it look like a scarily mischievous foot-soldier in the slithery army. People take these bands as a mark of fatal venom. ‘The smaller and shinier, the more venomous it is!’ they exclaim with raw fear. Like I also did last year as I rushed to my mother’s fearful call as she stared at the little thing in her room. We humans have set up our own norms of what is sinful and what is not. Among them is the principle that one is entitled to kill a snake if it enters our house. I won’t be too judgmental about it. All I can say is that we can look for alternatives before condemning it to death. There are always options provided we use our basic human faculty, i.e., reflect a bit before instinctively reacting.

I had hardly any knowledge of the little common wolf snake, so scared to the guts, believing it to be a life threatening creature, the symbol of my virtual fears born of my ignorance about its reality, I killed it. I had little clue to any other option. The act was my cowardly reaction pushed by my virtual fears and ignorance of the reality about the little reptile. The house is in a village and you don’t have any snake catchers even in the nearest town. Pained by my reactive deed, and still more by my inability to respond in any other way, I searched for information about this type of snake. The dispelling of my ignorance caused me repentance. I stood guilty in my own eyes. My virtual fears bred by my ignorance and nourished by collective fearful hysteria about a reptile created a life threatening situation where there wasn’t any. Aren’t most of our fears, anxieties and insecurities the phantoms doing rounds in the darkness of ignorance?

My realization came to be tested this morning. ‘Saanp saanp!’ my sister is hysteric with fear. She has broom in her hand, but a broom can scare a husband, not a snake. Indian women feel empowered with a broom in their hands, as if it is a sword, against their husbands. But the weapon fails them against mice and little snakes.

Let knowledge be your tool, at least to the wise ones. I see the beautiful common wolf snake slithering on the verandah floor, creeping to test my realization. Yes, it looks scary. It’s agile. It has a tiny hood. Its patterns are something that gives jitters with a scary sensation. It cannot kill humans with its venom. It is just enough for skinks. But it can scare humans like any other snake. We are always on a tinderbox to give a blast to our fears. On top of that it glides sideways like a rattle snake. My knowledge about it stops me from repeating my cowardly act last time. I have the knowledge that it cannot kill me. Still my biological system has triggered the panic hormones through my entire body. It cannot overcome decades of systematic breeding of virtual fears. The body reacts one way, but my mind is alert. I decide to take the best option. I pick up the little one feet fire-tong and decide to give it a chance at life. My hands are shaking, a raw primordial fear of the reptile. My mind but surefooted with the knowledge that its venom won’t kill me, but all along this even my mind has a strain of doubt about my knowledge of the fact about the common wolf snakes. Of that later!

The rawness of nature! When two scared to the guts creatures decide to come on the negotiating table you can expect goof ups. I fumble. I am scared. The poor reptile is even more scared. I have at least chance at life. It thinks that it is under mortal threat. Its tiny hood is doing all it takes to ward off the threat. It slithers like a rattle snake. So fast and agile! The heaves at life! God knows why there is so much of attachment to the body across all the species! On top of that my instrument is really short and I cannot afford to catch it from anywhere down its body leaving its little hood with spared length to bite my hand. Even a fake bite by a harmless snake is lethal, because our fears are real. I have to catch it a bit below its hood to give a best option to both the parties. My writer’s hands shake and let it slip many times. Whenever it falls, I jump like a trail of firecrackers has been tucked at my tailbone. My sister is warning all this while that it will sneak inside. Her solution is the stick waiting in the corner. Finally, my knowledge and awareness overcomes my pure biological reaction and the phantoms of virtual fears. It’s caught decently and I take it outside to let it glide into the marijuana plants that have strangely thronged at every nook corner this year. ‘I will use the stick if it comes in again!’ I have to appease my sister also.

Now coming to my nagging suspicion all this while in my mind; even with the harmless facts about the common wolf snakes. A few years back, a young man took fancy to catch snakes. He would do it expertly and hold them by tails as they fled for life. One day he was fully drunk and decided to make a little entertaining show of it. It was a common wolf snake I am more or less sure. Well, he caught it and in high spirits decided to go around the village showcasing his catch. Fully sloshed in country liqueur, he tried to put it inside a little bottle, succeeded also, but not before the little thing did what it is supposed to do under these circumstances. The gallant young man ignored the bite of this little worm type snake and died next day. Well, scientifically the venom of a little common wolf snake might not kill a human being in normal circumstances. But then biological accidents are always beyond the understanding of medical science also. Possibly this country-made alcohol and the apparently little bite by a little snake concocted something lethal to kill him. Now this fact was nagging me all the while. Knowledge liberates, it enslaves also. It opens, it shuts the door also. Main thing is how much we balance. The door cannot be either completely open or totally shut off. I would term his deed a foolish one, not an act of fearlessness. Fear within the limits of practical caution is a convenience, beyond that it turns into either foolishness or crippling bondage of paranoid virtual slavery to apprehensions, insecurity and assumptions.

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With our collage of precautions, fear and phobia we are imperiled to turn into Corona-seized psyches.

Corona has hit the pause button. There are lessons for a simple life and sustainable choices. As we are forced to shed off unnecessary load and survive decently at the sustainable level, we should realize that simplicity, when taken to the limits of perfection, turns the best version of truth. Let us disburden ourselves of the unnecessary gaiety and shine as our normal avatars. The best look I tell you.

The spell of Corona appears almost unrelenting over the media. It’s unimaginable to talk of something else at the moment. The little rocket-man of North Korea sends a tiny missile, a rebuking news-bite. There are reports that he is either no more, in coma or critically ill. A rival to Corona in daredevilry, he hasn’t been seen in public since April 11. People still have time to guess about his status. It shows he definitely has made a mark on the mass psyche outside his iron-curtained fences. If he is no more, he might be replaced by his equally ruthless younger sister. It leaves the story open for many interesting twists.

Against the background of booming big news, the tiny trills of positivity bloom like unseen wild flowers by a solitary forest path. In the Ganges, the national aquatic animal of India, the Gangetic dolphin, has been sighted. A rare sight because the pollution has almost wiped it out. Finally, the credit for cleaning Ganga Ma goes to her smallest in size but the biggest sinning son, Corona! The blue waters of Ganga Maiya do full justice to Her godly status. Corona’s sins get absolved as a clean Ganga Ma flows with reinvigorated spirit to heal humanity. Guys, abandon all your worries now! The majestic stream of alchemy is smiling now. A forgiving smile! All the pains will be gone. All will come out cleaner. Better days ahead, don’t worry!

In Cape Town, penguins are seen cutely modeling in the streets. It’s the time for the birds to turn explorers. In a creek near Mumbai, 150,000 flamingoes make a mammoth statement through their baby pink among a sea of white. Deer roam freely in the empty streets in London suburbs. Kangaroos hop to do reporting for the animal world in the empty streets of Adelaide. Far away in the semi-arid desolation of north India, there is life back in a little puddle. The tiny pool of water stands as the last teardrops of a dying wetland. Till a decade back, the little mossy puddle was a sprawling wetland covering 100 acres. Thousands of migratory birds thronged it. Then the farmers pushed to the corners began eating into it as the pressure on them increased. Now all that remains is a forlorn puddle. Wait, all is not as gloomy as we may think! Now a little group of ducks and three storks lands into it. An auspicious sign!

We fall sick and nature gets cured. Dangerously disproportionate equation! We have turned inversely proportional to everything around. Are we so out of sync with everything around? Let’s get paired a bit to turn directly proportional. Let’s learn to coexist! Let’s learn to be simple in our choices and pursuits. It’s not a stigma to be simple. Just because you choose not to be a rampaging bull it doesn’t mean you are weak. When simplicity reaches perfection, it becomes the best version of truth. Some tea toast for the soul, in case there is still some appetite left after the fun and feasting at the level of body. Cultivate simplicity!

Three piglets, the chum-bums of the so called smaller world around our victorious feet, are busy foraging freely in the dusty alkaline grass and prickly thickets. They have a message for the back-footed humanity:

Chums rubbing bums!

To the hell with social distancing!

That's your problem, not ours!

You guys didn't care,

Our freedom we also don't share,

We enjoy our littered eat,

You stare at yours in loo's seat,

You aren't as neat

as you may think,

Our nose is still pink

despite all the shitty job,

Stenchiest poo is loaded in your knob,

Despite the proof of your evolved brain,

All appears to go down the drain!

Dozens of kilometers away, the mall is silent in the desolate city under Corona seize. The escalator works to hear its own echo instead of the jostling crowd. A sparrow is enjoying the ride as it moves up perched on the hand support. It flies back to start the ride again from the foot of the staircase. Now she also gets her share of the escalator ride! Its joy born of the ride is palatable. As we lock up, nature opens! Please don't miss the fact that all and sundry except we humans appear so-so happy after many decades! In pure natural terms, we are currently like parents who sacrifice their comfort to bring a smile on the faces of their children. Don't sulk over the lockdown. Feel proud like a parent who has invested her own happiness and joy to make her daughter happier and healthier! We should feel like proud mama and papa to the rest of the species!

Well, in the UK the boss has survived and joined his wartime duties. Boris Johnson has luckily recovered from Corona infection. Corona must be disappointed over not being able to claim a big wicket. But we are happy for our species. With energy graph on the up-curve, the UK parliament holds a virtual session through video conferencing. Are we heading in a direction when everything will turn virtual? The real will get out of fashion and the virtual will take over.

On the other continent, a funny scene gets played. The Brazilian President, coughing like another Corona victim, gets onto the protesting stage, no mask, no social distancing. They are feeling more scared of the lockdown than Corona. Hope, Boris Johnson, having tasted the bug and realized the importance of precaution, writes a letter to the Brazilian gallant and give him some sanity talk. These leaders can get in personal touch with PM Modi, who has been chosen as the number one commander in the fight against Corona. He definitely can pass over a few workable tips to them. The recovery rate in India is currently highest in the world. The virus spread has been tamed to a linear trajectory instead of an exponential one, thus proving the Indian PM’s credentials. These stats acquire more significance on account of the fact that India surpasses the populations of all the major sufferers summed up together. More importantly, the majority of the population is prone to hooliganism with deep-rooted fissures in the society, making it the toughest job to keep them under the leash. Immanuel Macron must be thinking of keeping social distancing even from water. Corona has been found in the Seine river flowing throwing the French capital. Some zoo animals have been tested positive and a few cats have also been found to carry the virus. Either Corona is trying its level best to hide in non-human bodies, sensing the urgency of the human war against it, or it is creating a hysteric atmosphere by setting up pickets everywhere.

We have got habituated to show distrust. It’s a mundane effect of our not so ordinary pursuits. It breeds unsparing competition. We are more prone to be scared by instincts than even our cave-dwelling ancestors. When people get quarantined, they pour out their reaction according to their fears. Some have suffered communal anxiety attacks and view steps to the quarantine centers as if they are being dragged to gas chambers. There have been attacks on health officials. The government has now made the attack on health workers a criminal non-bailable offence with imprisonment up to 7 years. On a positive note, Maulana Sad of the Tabligi Jamaat ill-fame has shown some responsibility and is issuing audios, appealing his followers to cooperate with the governmental measures against the pandemic. All wars of passions, including religious ones, have economic interests at their core. When the enforcement directorate started to smell out his massive properties spread over farmhouses and buildings, the Maulana got scared and now turns an approver of administrative measures to contain Corona. Isn’t economy the sole driving force behind all pushing and pulling happening over the globe?

The Pakistani maulanas are throwing trickier googlies than Corona itself. Here comes a still unnamed delivery that can stump off any sane mind. A high-ranking revered maulana says that Corona has struck Pakistan because the women and girls in the Islamic republic are falling into immoral and immodest Western ways. The ever obedient to clergy Pakistani PM, a product of ultra-modern Western flamboyance and free fun himself, listens like a student and adds a geostrategic catalyst to the maulana’s chemical analysis of the Corona. Imran Khan says all this immoral effect on the Islamic society in Pakistan is born of the Indian film industry, Bollywood. Well, what to say?! Someone comes out of a coal mine and laughs at Taj Mahal for the little bits of pollution effects on its gleaming white body. 

Everything is in a flux and will remain so till there is a vaccine and Corona gets tamed. The HCQ, the anti-malarial drug, hailed by many as the wonder drug/weapon against the stealthy enemy, is now put under suspicion. It adversely affects the patient’s heart, they say. In any case, India is benevolently producing a huge stock to help humanity and is in fact sending it to at least 50 countries. Pakistan, of course, won’t have our wonder drug. Even at our best we can’t have heart enough to accomplish such a feat. The people won’t forgive the government if it takes the humanistic credo too far. The battle is too volatile by the way. The heroes fall easily and may turn villain.

Iran has suffered terribly at the hands of Corona. They hardly have the health infrastructure to cope up with such medical emergencies. They but love military posturing and the imagined threats in future are more realistic than the threat on the door-step, simply because it pampers the egos of those in power, which in turn creates the reason for the misuse of power by depriving the populace of the basic amenities of life. The health of common Iranian is too common of a subject. There are bigger battles against bigger enemies. So they have launched a military satellite. The entire humanity would have been indebted to them if the Iranian scientists had made some vaccine against Corona. If you do that, you won’t need military satellite to watch over your interests, the love and sympathy of millions outside Iran would be sufficient to ward off most of the dangers. 

Much of flimsy etiquette, from the nearest ones to the casual acquaintances around, under testing conditions, simply vanishes like the last drops of water vanish under the fiery June sun in north Indian summers. Relations fall apart. Is the instinct of individual self preservation so overpowering to even peel off the outer layers of our identity, even our family or relations? Corona has acquired the cult status of a demon in Hindu mythology. The masses in India behave at the extreme ends, no mid-way sensible, considerate action. Either they won’t listen to anyone; no voice of sanity reaching their ear-wax stuffed ears. They would just throng around to break all prohibitory orders. They do it as long as they aren’t scared in the absence of sufficient realization and knowledge of the issue. But God forbid if the panic strikes. Then all reason gets trampled under the stampede. Rumors do the rounds. People rush and do any kind of skullduggery to get out of the Corona juggernaut. From adamant rams to panicked bleating sheep, the journey is too swift to plan anything, In MP, a panic stricken family says no to cremate their diseased family member. Death has been overtaken by something more maligned, Corona. The tehsildar takes the responsibility to fulfill the last rites. The burly middle aged official has taken the boundary of his duties into a zone of humanistic sensitivities, which was thoroughly missing in pre-Corona administration. It was almost dehumanized and functioned matter of factly. This definitely is a welcome change.

At Ambala, Haryana, the villagers, including women, are waging stone-throwing, foul-mouthed pitched battles with the police. The district administration has chosen this particular cremation yard as the crematorium site for the Corona victims. The diseased is an 86 year old woman who doesn’t belong to the village. The municipal workers are clothed in PPEs and appear like they are visiting a nuclear blast site. The rampaging villagers are scared for their dead also. I hope they don’t fear that the virus being burnt on the pyre along with the body gets into the spirit world to haunt their ancestors. Well, looking at the bloodied battle it appears so. 

Communist China has created a crisis for the democracies across the world as nations are forced to lockdown. What we are facing now as emergency measures are simply the routine norms in Communist China. China spreads the disease and now sells medical supplies. In the crashed economic scenario, it’s wagging its tail to take over as many companies as possible. It’s pumping money into the WHO to usurp world leadership. No wonder the WHO has literally changed into Communist Health Organization (CHO). The WHO/CHO has taken a jibe at India also. In their recent online publication, they show Ladhak as part of China. Do you need more proofs to show who owns the WHO?

People say and believe it with full conviction that China-Russia-Pakistan are ganging up to forge a new axis of evil. The WW 3 axis of negative power is spreading fake news, the disinformation campaign through fake accounts, the infodemic, a new bomb. Fake cures and false claims create panic, uncertainty and anxiety. One such offering is the cure in the form of drinking bleach. It can kill the virus, a volley from infodemic claims. But Trump seems to have trumped all and sundry with his miraculous cure. He expertly muses, ‘We can inject disinfectants into the body to kill the virus!’ The virus must have been taken aback by the war strategy, but more shocked are the disinfectant makers. They rushed to put up a public declaration against it, saying their products are hazardous if consumed internally. But loyalists will be loyalists, by that time already a few dozen people had carried out the experiment. Trump also puts sun into a quandary by suggesting that sunlight can be somehow put inside the body to take the virus unawares.

Pakistan the crony! China wants to show to the world that they are like any other sufferer against the virus. They are now carefully structuring and manufacturing pockets of virus spread in select areas to be seen as fellow sufferers of the pandemic, in order to avoid being seen completely safe and out of it. They may have the vaccine also, but they have to show a typical research methodology to convince the world that all this was done under the necessities created in circumstances post-epidemic and there is nothing like preplanning involved in all this. Pakistan has offered its citizens to be used as guinea pigs for clinical trials for any prospective drug. Possibly they do this favor to waive off some of the unpayable loans that are loaded on its poor head by China. High time the world thinks in terms of democracy in China. As HH Dalai Lama says, ‘A democratic China is not only in the interest of the world but Chinese people as well.’ If democracy can kill one, a communist autocracy can easily wipe out hundreds at least in the same circumstances. So choose democracy.

South Africa deploys 70,000 troops to enforce lockdown. They realize what havoc it can wreak in Africa. We can merely pray that Corona doesn’t spread in Africa, otherwise the losses occurred in other continents will appear like celebratory firework in comparison to a massive cannon ball strike.

The people run away as the reconnoitering drones approach to watch over the curfew infringement. PM Modi emerges as the top commander in the war. By clamping down with iron grip on the entire areas where the super-spreaders have been found, India has been successful in keeping the graph linear instead of exponential growth.

Corona has far more consequences in a complex society like India. In a village, a milkman who supplied to many clients is found infected along with his family. They have been quarantined. The buffalos have nowhere to go. Nobody would touch them. In normal times people would hold a buffalo dearer than a lump of gold, but not now. They are from a Corona-carrier family. While boarding the ambulance, the distraught milkman untethered the cattle and set them free.

In a tiny colony of small time wage earners, laborers and masons, some harvest reapers arrive from Karnal. One of the newcomers is found infected. The entire locality has to be cordoned off. Now a policeman accompanies them even when they go out to harvest wheat. It’s so intimidating they say. However, on a positive note, drunkards no longer do their shouting, blabbering rounds in the streets. They look sober. More importantly, Modi emphasizes self-sufficient village economies, Gandhi’s gram swaraj. Timeless are the principles of such great people.

As people rhyme Corona and China in the same vein, leaving a fretting China admonishing Australia for recommending international probe into the genesis of the virus, Arnab Mukherjee has got a diversion. He is shouting Sonia, Sonia. On the way to this office, his car appears to have been vandalized by some miscreants. He squarely blames Sonia for this attempt on his life. Now Arnab being Arnab, you can be sure of his reaction. His lung power is immaculate. This is no virtual studio war, this is something real, so you can count upon his great show. Beyond Arnab’s storms in the tea-cups, quarantined laborers are whitewashing the school serving as their shelter facility. Hard-pressed by the war of survival during normal times, they hardly get time to think beyond themselves. Now with enforced leisure time they come out of the narrow confines of self preservation and contribute to a greater cause. Evolution of their self, I would call it.

In a world of no sports, no movies, no junk food, where all are just on the basics of life, the sediment load always in a flux now settles down to help us see things with a bit more clarity. We get an opportunity to see how many things that we load ourselves with are in fact redundant; we can very easily survive without them. That extraordinary is simply a mundane fruit of self-love. Self-love in turn is just a little prayer to the soul inside. And soul is merely a spark of the all encompassing love showering its meteorite showers across the cosmos. 

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If not for the Internet at least half of us would have died by this time. To be human and the urge to connect to fellow humans is synonymous. It instantly whips up our sagging spirits. We feel like we are chalking milestones while using the Internet. It bolsters our resolve to somehow kill time instead of getting slain by it. When boredom alarmingly creeps up, the Internet arrives with its warm deportment, offering scope for alluring getaways. It blows the lid off our suffocating self and sets us free. We get mesmerized by an astute unraveling of more facts, falsehoods, knowledge, information and misinformation. All mixed in varying proportions to make it a cocktail for the brain.  Its addiction is now a huge stabilizing factor in the modern society. It continues on spinning its enigmatic fabric. So here go my unqualified, unconditional salutes to the life-line during the war times.

Facebook and other social media platforms thrive on our urge to share and tell our thoughts, feelings, our mundane little stories which went unheard earlier. Earlier, it was the domain of the chosen few to get a platform to be seen, to be heard, to tell the triumphs and travails put forward by life. Now there is a pleasant cacophony of myriads of voices doing the rounds. These might appear almost inconsequential given their little appeal and reach among a small group. However, cumulatively they gang up, like little tributaries of a river to make a mammoth river. Remember, a rope is just a quantitative extension of a single sinew. A sea merely a numerical extension of a drop. These tiny stories, in the same way, decide the flow of major world events, including forming governments in biggest countries, making us feel somehow empowered in a subtle way.

No wonder we have this rib-tickling craving to get in touch with the larger world. Life has been crammed in tight schedules, leaving us hardly any room to be a part of the larger group at the personal level through intimate, warm interactions and relationships. So the vacuum gets filled by virtual socializing. Corona lockdown turns the social media more relevant by the way! It is literally the lifeline for the caged humanity.

We somehow try to get some connection through virtual platforms to share, hear, laugh, cry, get angry and feel ecstatic. Main thing is that we have so much to share because the modern society is so complex. The items to share pop out from the Pandora box of the sophisticated modern life. The world outside is rapidly turning into a mechanical one, we but are still the very same flesh and blood humans having the age old urge to connect and socialize. It will take many generations for this urge to accept the reality of the changed world where things will turn as impersonal like the relationships among a group of cars in a showroom. Till then we will have replacements like we have now; virtual socializing instead of the real one as in old days. In the coming times, even the current level of virtual socializing will be too personal for the artificial world outside. We will then have a still diluter version of connection.

A Facebook friend raised this very pertinent issue regarding our urge to nurture virtual relationships through social media. She is a very intelligent spiritualist who has learnt to manifest her spirituality through social work also. An icing on the cake, I tell you. If you can work upon what you speak, you maximize your potential to realize and learn your lessons in this lifetime. She is drawn to the root cause of our helplessness in connecting and sharing, and that through impersonal social media platforms: ‘Well, there is something fundamental to discover, which seems a reoccurring reflection point in me and I deeply want to catch its very root: Why do we as humans share, write, post and need that connection in general?’

In my opinion, the need for that connection is one of the fundamental needs. Like the physical body needs food. The higher bodies, the higher levels of our self attached to this consciousness, have more subtle needs. The emotions, feelings and thoughts are the linkages through the energy body connecting to the spirit body. Ironically, they connect but hide the real from the illusionary both at the same time.

For a flight of freedom, the kite needs a connection, the cord. If the cord gets snapped, it dives to its last swirls and crashes on to the ground. Now the attaching cord and the freedom-seeking kite appear to be pulling against each other. A kite’s freedom is in flying. But can it fly without its cord, against which it is fighting to liberate itself to fly. It exists in a teasing duality set up by the bondage. Same is the need for connection for our soul. Like a necessary evil, just like friction. All this illusion and drama will stop without the apparently contradictory pulls and tensions of attractions, connections, talks, emotions, feelings, thoughts and the need to share them. As long as the kite retains the urge to claim freedom, which is nothing but attachment to the cord, it has to rely on the tool of bondage also. Of course, if it accepts the permanent settling down, the undying settling down on the ground—which unfortunately appears scary as death—it has to fuel its flight of freedom through the fuel of attachment, the bondage, the connection. If it decides to forget about the so called ‘liberation’, it doesn’t need the connecting cord to propel it. Then even death loses its meaning in the absence of the urge to fly. Both are merely states: one of ‘becoming’ the other of just ‘being’.

We also need this connection in its various forms ranging from the most intimate ones to casual to hardcore professional ones. We need this food for our emotions and feelings, only till we are on the path. Till we reach the destination. It's the fuel that propels our journey. I feel that that is what we mean by being human. We can connect in far subtler dimensions beyond the physical limitations like in case of other animals. Our vast network of emotions and feelings provide a huge network to formulate a huge stage of connections.

This quest for connecting with higher dimensions begins with our connection on the small plane of human connection. We are all aware of the possibility of some higher connection. All of us have this gut feeling about a higher possibility. A journey begins with a single step. This is our first step, a bit higher than strictly physical connection like other species. A natural course set out for the evolution of consciousness, by learning to connect on the smaller planes to reach higher and higher orbits of connection; to become part of everything by shedding all connection; to get grounded permanently. When we lose our fancy for flight, which we wrongly term as freedom, the connection turns irrelevant. Even if it exists, it exists naturally, like a tree exists: A state of just ‘being’ instead of ‘becoming’.

Why doesn't water rest on a slope? It doesn’t because it is aiming for the ultimate connection with the sea, the final merging. All along the journey, it connects with so many elements, furiously cuts and corrodes, surrenders to blocks, wins over obstacles and finally learns spontaneity. Similarly, consciousness in its journey of connection with super-consciousness has to move along the path and experience its journey. These fleeting connections along the way give support and solace to help continue the journey. I take it mere facilities of food, shelter, friendliness and safety as one moved along a caravan path in old times. These don't turn irrelevant just because one is aiming to reach the final destination someday. The destination isn't a single point. It's a linear process, right there from the beginning to the end. The entire journey is the destination. The entire string of connections is the destination itself. We get skeptical because we always divide things, like we separate destination from the path, while in reality destination is simply a process, an elongated journey.

So guys enjoy this journey to the ultimate connection through the path of these little-little sweet-sour relationships, tidbits of sharing and caring coming along the way. These are little guesthouses along the way where one spends the night, rests, recuperates and moves on. I would even avoid using the word destination. I would simply say, my path. And my path is defined by the things falling along it. It cannot exist in isolation.

I would suggest a little technique in this regard: Maun, silence. Try to be off the radar for a week, if possible. No words, no virtual connection, nothing. Just you coming home. In that silence you will accept the innocent worldliness of this path, because that is what defines it. The path itself would appear destination. And all connections with externalities would appear like simple catalysts to help you connect with yourself. In maun, in complete disconnection, may be the relevance of connection will show its true face. Happy be your path!

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Even the month of May seems hesitant to enter the muddled, frenzied loops of strayed times. ‘May I not come!’ seems to implore the month of May. Immaculately petite strands of coolness stop it well short of turning a typical hot season that gets its crowning glory in the form of flaming red gulmohar flowers. The ominous roar of unorthodox times is palpable through anecdotes such as a jeweler selling vegetables to keep his shop afloat during the crisis.

Lockdown 3.0 starts. The entire country is its playing theatre. The biggest blockbuster! This seems to be the Corona-directed script. Lockdown extended for another two weeks after May 3. There are a few relaxations on the basis of categorizations: red (where there are many cases, have hardly any relaxations); orange (lesser cases, here there are some restrictions on the movement of people within the locality); green (few cases and hence people get still bigger space to come out of total lockdown).  

Big news for the booze lovers! The government seems to realize that people need the potion of forgetfulness to lick their wounds and lie down in peace. More importantly, the industry provides Himalayan revenue also. Thirsty people get the taste of life after many weeks. Liqueur shops open. People go crazy and throng the venue of paradisiacal pleasure. The police has to lathi-charge to drive sense into their already intoxicated brains. It was literally a stampede outside the wine shops. All norms put aside. In Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, some innovation worked to help social distancing. People were asked to keep an umbrella over their heads while waiting in the queue. So with their inflated heads they had to stand a bit away from each other. Where is the witch-hunting media? Systematically a particular community was maligned, but here it is passed as a routine infringement. Why? Isn’t it that almost all the wine-hungry law-breakers are Hindus? Is the crime of a Hindu lesser than a Muslim? The media could have avoided creating Islamophobia. They may take it as a sign of their protruding nationalism, but little do they realize that they might be sowing the seeds of further division of the country sometime in the future. Help erase the feeling of alienation among the Muslims, not instigate it.  

How to make China pay if the world has creditable proofs of their wrongdoing in the Corona episode? A dictatorial regime can be penalized in far more subtle ways than a normal one. More importantly, the hit-back hardly involves any bloody consequences like in a conventional war. Hit their ideology, their sorest spot. Pamper democratic voices of dissent in China. Help the flame keep burning in Hong Kong. Later or sooner the bug of democracy will bite the mainland with the same intensity as Corona bit America. China doesn’t worry about a missile strike, it is more apprehensive of the democratic bug! Officially recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state. Raise the issue of Tibetan annexation vocally. These are far more effective measures than bombs and missiles. Use their greed for ‘business at any cost’ against them. Provide manufacturing opportunities for companies to shift bases in smaller countries. An aggrieved party in Italy has filed lawsuits against China asking for reparations. It’s a kind of claiming war damages. Encourage more and more countries to demand war damages from China. The fuming, fire-spitting dragon will turn an altruistic dove. Good for them, better for the entire world.   

Just like Corona overrode everything else to take the hot-seat, a piece of sad news prevailed over the routine Corona talk. Irfaan Khan bade adieu to this character in this life on the 29th of April. It happened so sudden that people cannot just believe it. In fact, we were waiting for many movies from the star actor. He appeared to have recovered well from a rare cancer and even acted in his latest movie, English Medium. The social media is awash with condolence messages. The specter of Corona was veritably washed away from the social media by the teary deluge of heartfelt condolences. The next day Rishi Kapoor also bade adieu to the world, making it one of the most testing phase in everybody’s life.

There is no point in mentioning how many countries are facing Corona threat. Just to mention briefly, 185 countries have borne the brunt, leaving only a dozen lucky ones to have been out of the vicious loop. These are mostly tiny island nations scattered in the farfetched distances of the pacific. Turkmenistan, but, stands out as a landlocked surprise with all the surrounding countries having big number of infections. If they maintain their Corona-free status, I think they have every right to celebrate it as an outright victory.

Taiwan has proven that it is possible to stay alive with dignity and prosper right down the line of fire, if you have the will power to the effect. Terribly bullied by the mainland communist ideologues and sadly not recognized by any of the main countries, the little wonder has set up an example in the fight against the nemesis. There have been 400 something infections and 6 deaths only. They are entitled to be analyzed as a WHO case study in fighting the pandemic. I think bigger countries can reward them by recognizing their diplomatic status as a separate country. Another apt reply can be to deluge the international court of justice with reparation claims. Lawyers in Nigeria are suing China for the terrible loss of human lives and economic damages. There are massive lessons for African states also, many of whom are heavily indebted to China. There are racial attacks on migrant African workers in China. They get pushed and prodded like second-rung species.

To bring a bit of smile on our gloomy faces, foreign businesses based in China are reaching out to India. According to sources, about 1000 manufacturing companies are in touch with India. India come on, ‘Make in India’ is a practical dream now. India can replace China as the global manufacturing hub post-Corona! Why wage war against a rabid, war-mongering Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? The golden aura of blood and gore to settle the score is gone now. The modern day revenge is harmlessly wrapped in inconspicuous colors. There are subtle ways of wending our way through their defense. Faceless whooping will of more substance in future. Let’s hit their manufacturing. As far as India is concerned, it proves that if you stay normal in crisis and value human life more than dollars, in the longer term you gain economically also as the coming times may prove.

Mammoth sized Chinese telecom companies are the backbone of their International revenue. Any spasm there will put many organs in grimace. America may ask the Chinese telecom companies to leave their soil. Already some yawning to the effect has taken place as a circular has been passed over to them asking them to clarify their stand on their exact relationship with the communist regime. Many feel their security risks, as still many more people view them to be directly under the communist party’s control. With America losing more people than the Vietnam war, they are bound to retaliate in some form or the other. China, on its part, appears to be worried as it tries to downplay its achievement in containing the pandemic and thus stand out as the black sheep, which in turn gives rise to more and more anti-China suspicion theories. So we have the dragon opening a bit. We have more videos of the Chinese managing Corona like any other earthling. Earlier, there was hardly any information emanating from behind the iron curtain. Are they trying to appear like fighting against Corona like any other country? If they do, sorry the plot appears too simple! Meanwhile, an embittered and furtively denunciating Trump is calibrating to bring a bill against China. China in retaliation calls America a failed state. Objectively speaking, we cannot overlook the American intelligence failure about the pandemic. They were quick to warn of a disaster in India but missed it completely in their own house. Darkness under the lamp itself! Can you believe it? Or was it sheer criminal overconfidence and a sense of invincibility that made them think that pandemics are the affairs of poor massively populated third world countries only. Ironically, this turns out to be a pandemic of the developed nations. A disease of the rich! There are lessons to be learnt—there are many, honestly speaking. Trump wants to make China pay, directly indirectly accusing that China fostered the pandemic. China cribs back like a stubborn bully in the class. There is verbal street fight between China and America almost daily. The time of a uni-polar world is nearing its end. China is willing to bypass all legal, moral and diplomatic hoops to occupy a position of undisputed world leadership.

Beyond the long and winding debate about China, one fact has to be accepted that most of the European countries and America itself plainly sleepwalked into the disaster. Their government’s obsession with economy and people’s still more chronic obsession with individual freedom sabotaged their own safety. The society that cannot ‘sacrifice’ economic stakes and let go of ‘personal freedom’ as contingency measures to ward off greater losses always stands at a risk. The very same applies to the governments in Europe and America. Learn from India. Prioritize human life over bank notes. They lost both. India at least could save thousands of lives, even if every life saved comes at the cost of hundreds of thousands of rupees. In the end, it is always a nice bargain.

The luxury market is lying on the ventilator as a critical patient. Hope it recovers once the basics of life get sorted out. The oil economies are collapsing. Millions of Indian expats, 8.5 million to be precise, in the Middle East may lose jobs. Thousands of oil tankers are stranded at ports world over as there are no buyers. Now, we have to recalculate, how much of running around is reasonable to save us from the burn-out. Some lessons can be our sole take-aways: Either provide a safety valve for the slow exit of the consequences of our skewed policies, or it will happen accidently in an explosive manner. 

There is hardly any intra-human competitive spirit as of now. The IOC has said if there is no vaccine in the coming months, there won’t be any Olympics. No vaccine, no Olympics. It is not advisable to play forever to win only. Learn to live to lose also and still smile. Playing to win by all and sundry methods may in the end result in a scenario where all end up losing. Redefine the parameters of winning and losing. Let’s epitomize the value of simply playing beyond the shrill exhortation of the win—loss formula. Let’s pause our modern spirit’s tendency to move uphill forever and cherish the fruits of our labor by joyfully walking on the plateau.       

We as a species are itching to somehow catch the slippery invisible thing. It being but almost impossible to snare the rascal, it is better to snare the prospective carrier body from a distance. The police have contrived a device to snare the curfew violators without the need to touch them. They use a fork like device with a long handle to catch the culprit from a distance; just in the manner a snake-catcher uses a specialized stick to catch reptiles. The only crime as of now appears to be coming out of the house without any reason, the only violation being curfew violation. The world appears better without any more types of violations.

We need to have our moments of triumphs and celebrations. We are habituated to have our heroes and heroines. With our virtual stars turning cooks, washer-men and -women, sweepers and barbers, we have to do with less flamboyant—real nonetheless—stars. They are the Corona survivors who look at the remaining bits of the world with a permanent look of amazement. The recovered patients are showered with rose petals as they leave hospitals with the glory of beating Corona looming on their faces. Getting infected carries almost a social stigma, but recovering creates hopes for life and living against the deadly virus.

The policemen, out of their comfort zones of just thrashing and reprimanding and thus getting a niche status for the department, are holding drama shows in the open to scare the grown up obstinate children who can hardly beat their urge to run out of the house at the slightest pretext. In fact, they even play a full Corona Ramayana with Corona as the evil pitted against righteousness. I wonder, many policemen may join theatre and acting post-pandemic. The police have been resoundingly creative which is very intriguing. Their new insights have dismantled their rough image for the time being.

Now at least Boris Johnson appears to acknowledge how close he got into the clutches of death. He admits he was scared and the administration had set up emergency measures in case the biggest wicket to Corona falls. Earlier, it was damn funny on his part as the head of the state, when he boasted at a press conference that he has been shaking hands with patients at hospitals. Criminal negligence I would call it, especially from the head of a state! What type of example do you want to set? No wonder leaders like these sleep-walked their unsuspecting citizens into the trap. The British government appeared so sure of their invincibility against the funny thing named Corona that they hadn’t chalked out any planning. In fact, they had exported PPEs to China. So when their turn came, the doctors had to fight almost without the basic medical safety equipments. Many doctors have perished due to this callousness. They definitely will pay the political costs once the people are in a position to calibrate over things.

While the Iranian government appears more serious about developing ballistic missiles against the visible enemy America, the common people decide to wage their own wars against the virus. Some even pay a huge price in terms of faith, for they break the Islamic injunction against drinking alcohol. There has been a king of fool’s expert advice that alcohol kills Corona even within the system. Some experts said it kills with external use as a disinfectant. Correspondingly, many people derive natural corporally that if it kills outside, it will do the same inside also. So there they go guzzling spurious liqueur. Around 800 people have died in Iran because of drinking spurious alcohol. The epic protagonists lost the battle of life, in addition to slipping from their strong hold on the rope of rigid faith also! To a Muslim, dying because of drinking alcohol must be a big disappointment.

Rail tracks and roads taste the touch of passengers on their sinuous bodies after many weeks. Special trains and buses have been permitted to take stranded students and impoverished migrant workers to their native places. Their tale has been uncommonly painful. The land of dreams, where they had arrived once with much fanfare, appears to have ditched them and left them to wobble in a sea of miseries. It’s a ravaging, frank verdict to clear the virus-haunted land. I don’t think those who are lucky to hitch a ride on these paltry services will dare to return for many months.

The equation of animosity has been turned upside down. Corona strikes humans as one species and one nationality, i.e., earthling. So the militaries must be yawning with boredom over the globe. Military has turned almost mute, side-watching civilians in the current war, the real soldiers being policemen, medical staff, doctors and cleaners. So quite fitting for the moment, the Indian army decides to be a civil celebrator to honor the brave fighters in the Corona war. Now they will at least know how it feels to be applauding civilians showering petals on the soldiers. Helicopters are not showering bullets; they are showering flowers over hospitals, the war fronts in the current war. Military bands play to honor those who have fallen while bravely fighting the virus. Light and sound shows along the coasts celebrate the spirit of indomitable hope against all odds.

With my amateur assessment, I can see more into the air-spread theory than they accept. How will you explain 1.4 million infections within such a short period of time in America? Touch-born contagiousness is expected to show a bit of linear growth graph, not such ballistic missile type exponential surge to hit the cosmos. The rascal is most probably firing salvos through air to breach our immunity forts.

In our village, a minor skirmish with the enemy took place. A man serves as a security guard at Azadpur Subzi Mandi in Delhi, where there have been many cases. The Haryana government has totally sealed its borders with Delhi in order to stop the virus-spread in its territory from the national capital. The Delhi that pulled millions with its dreams now repels. Under the media overkill, the cities have turned peripheral in importance and people are running away like rats from a sinking ship.

Fear is tightly knit in mass psyche. Internal borders within countries are more important than the national borders for the time being. Doesn’t it prove that all these so called borders are our mind constructs on the basis of fear? Well, the security keeper from the village panicked after staying away from his family for weeks and then decided to walk across the countryside to reach home in two days. The people in every locality are now the scouts in the war against Corona. He can hardly take a glass of water at his home before the ambulance, the armored vehicle of the war, arrives to handle the latest encroachment by the mischievous virus through the scared body of a human. Someone dutifully telephoned the police and thus fulfilled his quota of nation building by helping our village stay safe. Well done. The enemy is cordoned off. Interrogated sternly and taken into quarantine. The entire family is locked within the house for at least 14 days.

Sonipat has entered the ignominy of being in the red zone. Thousands of people work in Delhi. Corona spread from Delhi was almost unavoidable. Till now 80 cases have been reported from the city. Local administrators have been given the authority to operate like autocrats for the time being. They in turn have handed over the message to local elected members of the governing committees. Let there be a single case of unreported arrival in your area and you are suspended. District police and civil administrators hold their fiefdom with Hitler-like alacrity. ‘Don’t dare to encroach onto my territory, even if you happen to be a police personnel yourself!’ they admonish.

How can one expect things to be free from politics in India? Anything apolitical literally counts as defaming of the illustrious nation. There are multitudes of vested interests and Corona politics will raise hood later or sooner. A bus from Nanded in Maharashtra carrying stranded Sikh passengers arrived with a busload of scared pilgrims. A political storm is brewing. A few positive cases among the pilgrims and all bonhomie scatters like broken glass. Punjab government is accusing the Maharashtra government for not testing the pilgrims before putting them overboard. The Maharashtra government hits back why the passengers weren’t quarantined upon their arrival. The leaders have an enviable tryst with destiny where their hypocritical self gets plenty of rope in pulling the puppets on the public stage.            

Slovenly dressed, frayed hair, rumpled casuals, and all waddled inside, who the hell is even bothered about jewellery in such times. A jeweler in Rajasthan can be counted as the person with the most profound realization of the time. He has stashed away his jewelry and put fruits and vegetables in the racks. One lesson: why need jewelry which we cannot even eat. At least fruits can be eaten! Everything has a bipolar identity. Why sit on the extremes when we have the option of balancing things somewhere in the middle, a sort of nice blend of need and greed.

And last but not the least, adding to the long list of celeb cooks, sweepers and washermen, one famous hairdresser adds to the list. It’s none other than the Nawab himself. Saif Ali Khan is going to give a haircut to his son Taimur. The art of haircutting comes out of anonymity and suddenly crawls into the corridors of fame.

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These are sad times for a jailed writer. There is a Covid-19 quarantine poster on the neighboring house and a curfew-imposing bully threatens me to stay inside. It’s breeding resentment in me and all I find myself capable of is letting out an anguished cry. Will our world, I mean the world of humans, see better days?

This simian bully who fully understands that we are on the back foot—and hence tries to claim more space in the human settlement, intimidating people and setting himself like a curfew guard—draws my memory a decade back. How I wish we had our kind old Major with us. The memory acquires even sharper notes as I see this ruffian sleeping in the open along with his clan —on the ground itself—unconcerned and unmindful of any transgression by we humans. To put it plainly, the criminal, goonish bully cares a damn about us anymore. He is free cravenly gulping down gallons of flawed bravery. Corona is helping him copiously. How I wish we had our kind, old Major to teach this misbehaving tramp a nice lesson. Well, Major would certainly have dispensed justice for us, without delay, right there at the scene of crime.

The village was taking convulsive, irritated and helpless turns under the simian onslaught. The red-faced, red-bottomed and red-balled Rhesus tramps had bred profusely. All the females had babies stuck to their tummies. To cock a snook at us, they mated shamelessly on rooftops, grimacing hideously at the onlookers. They seemed to have chronic caste prejudice against we humans. Then they would muster up more courage to molest women and girls, harass them, get after them, and snatch things from their hands. I specifically say that they took more liberty with women than men. I wonder was it simply their instinctive realization that they are softer sex and hence less threatening, or was it blatant sexism involving some raw sadistic pleasure in putting human females at discomfort. If it was the latter, the crime then turns unpardonable.

So instead of stooping low to their rascally level and fight on their terms, someone had a more elevated idea. Get a Langoor man! If the offended Homo-sapiens in you can’t get over the feeling of taking revenge against the errant ancestors of ours, wait! Before you think of any drastic measure—thus degrading you to the level of lawless goons themselves and thus go into regression to be what we were sometime back in the chronological book of evolution—think like a human. Get a Langoor!

An enemy’s enemy is my best buddy. I just love this majestic silver-furred black-faced angel. It’s far bigger, more on the stoic side, doesn’t waste its energies in unnecessary shit like the recklessly red-faced, shamefully red-bottomed and funnily red-balled smaller Rhesus does. Its tail can hold multiple pink balls of the shameless Rhesus macaque and throw them to winds. The forever law-breaking Rhesus is terribly scared of the stoic grandpa of the simian world. He usually holds them by their tails, tosses them around and gives hard slaps by holding their ears. Vow, ahha, what a sight! Mere visualization gives me multi-orgasmic pleasure. I would abandon most of the luxuries of life to re-experience the scene. A cowardly Rhesus isn’t as afraid of an AK-47-wielding funny human as it is of the saber-rattling grimace of a Langoor.

So our kind, old Major arrived on the scene. Well, he didn’t arrive as Major. He arrived on the scene as a nameless Langoor as a sturdy fun-loving farmer got it more out of fun and less to alleviate the women’s woes in the village. Had it been about the alleviation of female miseries in the patriarchal society, most of the men would have been summarily executed long before the red-balled rascals.

So the stoic grandpa on the scene, and lo there was a panicked stampede among the cowardly Rhesus horde. They ran helter skelter. The little battles were no match for the majestic Langoor. He won the war handsomely. One enthusiastic uncle, who had the glory of winning the war for India against Pakistan in Kargil found real camaraderie with the Langoor. Uncle had fired one solitary shot in the famed war. Well, it was shot in the air in celebration, far down inside the Indian territory as the advanced platoons pushed back Pakis at a great cost to their own lives. But then Uncle’s shot in the air must have scared a few Devatas of ours hovering midair to congratulate on our victory. Uncle was proudly rewarded with the honorary title of a Major on his retirement. Now the proud soldier thought it suitable to put up the strips of valor on our Langoor friend also. So the Langoor became Major. People just loved to call him Major.

Victory brings laurels and rewards also. The farmer’s son passed his evenings in the spacious barn. Now, something about the Jat boys, the majestically proud farming clan, who keep their ego always on Mount Everest. As they get heaved by the hormonal storms of youth, they do wrestling, drink pitchers of milk, eat mounds of butter, loaf around with all the air stuck up in the chest, eve-tease girls, think of sex 24x7, drink liqueur, play cards, smoke hukka and spend the still left out surplus energy in lewd funniest talk.

So the young peasant and his cronies were no different. They created ruckus late into the night in the barn as a morose Major, tethered by a rope to the charpoy, would watch sullenly, his sleep disturbed, the proud medallions of his bravery not sufficient to tame the rampantly straying energies of the farmer youths. On one occasion, in the diluted spirits of mischief and forgetfulness, one rascal found sympathy for the dimmed face of a sleepy Major. ‘Major also wants to drink!’ he proclaimed. They cackled with consent. The best thought of their lives possibly!

A peg was made for the brave Major. Like a soldier has a right to drink anywhere in the world, our brave Major also availed the facility. One of them took a heavy Patiala peg in a glass. Major simply took it as matter of factly. Was it in irritation, or had he been waiting all along for this, I don’t know. He simply gulped it down in one terrible swig, shook his head vigorously, gave a few rounds of sneeze and threw the glass onto the ground breaking it. They didn’t mind the glass at all because they had an addition to the drinking party. They just hugged him like they hadn’t hugged anyone in their lives.

Next day, a solution was hatched as even in their free spirits they couldn’t afford to lose a glass every day. A steel glass was reserved for our retired Major. He would of course gulp the nectar in one big swig, shake his head profusely, sneeze and throw the glass on impulse. The metal glass would just give a musical background to their hideous rounds of laughter. So our Major, having won the battle for us, wining the medal of bravery and rationed with whisky spent his evenings in the barn. What a retirement! Peace be on his soul!

How I wish we had our kind old Major even now! This intimidating rascal would have turned a sissy monkey and gone running out with its funny shack of a tail stuck to its red balls!

PS: The curfew man has already misused his powers by throwing around the bricks. Well, he has a right. We are on the back foot, eh!

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The worldwide Corona infection cases stand at 4.5 million with 300,000 fatalities by the end of second week of a sulking May whose request of ‘May I not come in!’ was not accepted. Stealthily the number is creeping up in India also, like water oozes out of the cracks in a dam. Let’s hope the dam doesn’t give away altogether! India is almost like a raw fodder for the fiery virus. If it goes out of control, the loss in other countries will lose its meaning. They will consider themselves lucky, if god forbid the virus actualizes its full evil potential in India.

As of now, we have 75000 cases with 2300 casualties. On a positive note, a third of these have recovered completely, making the recovery rate at 33%, which creates many hopes. May be, the exposure to bugs, bacteria and virus in the filth and squalor of routine struggle on the mundane stage of life has bestowed herd immunity to we Indians. The virus appears to have a sadistic pleasure in tormenting the sanitized, cleaner cultures. Well, the poor have their own diseases, so have the rich. But that doesn’t mean we should go all dirty. The importance of hygiene and cleanliness has been understood well, even by those who barely understood the difference between latrine box and altar. 

Pop Diva Madonna is reported to be very happy after months of sulking and suffocating in the interiors of her house. Tests have given the good news. She has the antibodies for the ill-famed virus. It means the bastard may not be fatal to her. She is thus ecstatic to go on a long drive in the scary Covid-19 air. She can now afford to roll down the windows and feel the kiss of air on her youthful cheeks. She has the protective gear inbuilt in her system against the enemy, which will fail to ambush her. Happy for her that she is going to have a sip of freedom at last! Haven’t we turned freedom too costly? The freebies of nature—the air, the water, open skies, pristine forests—have been chucked out in greed. Now is the time to pay for the loot. The rationing has started. Take care!

In India, the swashbuckling Lockdown 3.0 is a hugely costly affair. There is a categorization of red, green and orange zone. Life is supposed to take cautious steps first in the green zones without any known Corona cases, followed by Orange where there are just a few cases to be followed by the lugubrious steps in the scary red ones. But it’s very dicey. Let there be the slightest mistake and the lights may change colors. Well, we have been used to the play of lights at traffic signals. The green gives such a sense of relief. Let there be a green signal for all to move again. The red light has been too long and tortuous. Well, traffic rules sometime help in running the country also, apart from managing the road traffic. It means all this is a mammoth journey only.

During the lockdown, every life saved comes at the cost of crores of rupees. Life has been undeservedly too much monetized. Let’s now learn to define life and living in non-monetary terms also. It will help us, believe me.

In poverty, both celebration and sorrows are expressed in harshly measured and calculated quantities. It looks a whimsical design of fate. Those at the lowest rung in the socio-economic ladder are suffering miserably. Their painfully set up homes and hearth are gone in a jiffy in the cities. People are walking back to their roots. A horrible reverse migration has started. How long we can expect them to stay stranded in ghettos without job and other basic minimum facilities of common life. Poverty has been pushed further into a darker corner. Even the miserable life of earlier appears rich in contrast. Only after losing what we possess, we come to realize the importance of the tiny blessing we earlier had. It provides a reason for advocating the power of gratitude in all its intensity.

Among the monologues of misery, the government has started special trains to take them home. They are the fatigued, defeated and lacerated soldiers who fought for our development in the cities. Millions and millions want to escape from the imperiled urban fronts in the war. A train can adjust only 1200 passengers, where will the rest go? Getting a ticket appears like the biggest lottery. There is a provision for online booking. Even among the poorest of the poor, the luck will favor the better ones. Technology has an aversion for the poorest. I mean those selected few who have a smartphone and know how to make an online booking will avail this rare opportunity to board a train. So the moment the booking opens, the seats are taken by the more privileged among the poorest of the poor. It leaves out millions who don’t have a smartphone. They have to choose other options by default. The best option by default is to start walking to one’s home that is more than a thousand kilometer away. Lobbying their last ounces of courage they start on the journey. A leap of faith! An escape from the ignominy of being stranded meaninglessly! At least you walk. You do something at least!

People get driven by rumors and stand in front of railway stations. They wait for the train that isn’t even scheduled. They but have to keep their hopes alive. Corona cannot rob them of their hope of a train. They stand in miles long queues for days. Social distancing loses its meaning. Poor migrant workers are paying lump-sum from their miserly savings to hitch clandestine rides in goods trucks. Sometimes the police topples the cart. Stranded in the middle, they hardly have any clue to what and why of future. We can measure loss in monetary terms, but who will calculate the silent, unchronicled miseries of the millions who suffer in the dark, unknown chambers of this battlefield.

Destiny plays cruel jokes. You pay for an illegal travel in a goods truck, brave all legal risks and pay like you are paying airfare. You are lucky to cross almost 1000 Km and just 350 Km away from the sweet native soil. You are ready to forget the miseries for that safe and secure feeling of reaching your place. Corona-infected destiny but still plays the spoilsport. It derails the journey indirectly. The vehicle meets an accident. Many get injured and those able to walk continue with their journey on foot. Can you believe, autos have been hired to travel 1200 Km. A family had just started counting the countdown kilometers to home and the tiny three-wheeler meets an accident. A woman and a small girl die and others grievously injured lie in a hospital. We definitely reach home, but which ‘home’ it is, that’s always decided by some mischief mongers that stay invisible to us.

A small group of workers spends their entire savings earned through the soot, grease and grime of an urban toil to purchase cycles. But many people would still not lose a chance to earn money. Profit and loss is the only way we can think these days. The core values of humanity seem to have faded into insignificance. Under distressed purchase, the rickety cycles are sold at an exorbitant rate. They don’t have any option. The poor workers buy and start on the arduous journey, going hungry, and being harassed by police at borders. The most they can ask from God at this juncture is that the tyres don’t give in till they reach their villages. Some migrant workers are caught hiding in a concrete mixer. I pray they don’t start the mixer by accident and mix human flesh with concrete. Well, it always has been mixed to set up the shiny edifices. But all that is done in subtle manners, indirectly. It has always been accomplished in spirit. Doing it in letter will turn out to be too gory a sight. Let it stay in spirit only.

The house owners throw away the laborers for not paying rents. Even the stinking slums look a lost paradise now. A house owner thinks in a typically legal way that he is entitled to receive the rent at any cost, under any circumstances. Well, law is on his side. The law is helpless beyond the strictly theoretical boundary on the paper. Is it law only that we need to manage our society? Well, machines have an all-law society, not humans. As the mechanics of law take over our functioning, our mechanization will surely take us to the threshold of a dehumanized, artificial intelligence driven society. It would then be better to do archaeological search for the real man like we search for dinosaur skeletons now.

People walk on foot. The soles blistered. Fate pushes and prods with a demonic fury. The already misshapen, abused feet getting lacerated to take crooked animal shapes! A hard crust of misery and helplessness stuck to their faces. Will they be able to smile at ease in future? It will take a long time if they ever will. They have few provisions, so few that a house will look empty with them. But whatever they have is the unavoidable essentials without which one can’t survive possibly for more than a day. So they cannot afford to abandon even these. They stack up their provisions in gunny sacks and begin on foot. The provisions are too little for a little house, but these are too heavy for a human head. They look like famished beasts of burden. They lumber ahead impassively, like jombies. Smallest feet learn to walk. Toddlers held in their arms. There are bitter lessons for the youngest generation. Pregnant women walk with the extra load of maternity. A woman gives birth on the way and still has the courage to walk another 150 Km after the delivery. Salutes O Mother!

There are still luckier ones among this unlucky horde. Some have bikes. They load their entire family and provisions on the bike, yank a jibe at a small car, and move out on thousand plus kilometer journey. They have to dodge Corona. They have to dodge police also. Some have carrier rickshaw loaded with their sacks and take turns to ride and the rest run by the side. We have been condemned to move. We are shifty and restless. We have the curse to move at any cost. 

Those were the happy days when the caravan had stopped by the busy outskirts of Sonipat. The caravan of wandering nomadic ironsmith is bigger than you expect these days. They are the stateless subjects of India. They still survive on the fringes without most of the rights that we take for granted. They still have sturdy wooden ox carts. The trace of modernity, however, is visible through their well-hammered bike carrier contrivances. The torso of a bike is welded to a tiny carrier behind. The carrier frame has their typical nail-headed gypsy pattern. Well, we give it all to retain our identity. How do they survive now with their movement, their life literally, stopped? It’s like a fish without water. I hardly have any clue. Their only right is the right to move. Corona has taken away even that. Right opposite the road, the district administration allows vegetable stalls during the early morning for 2-3 hours. That is the time when the gypsies smell the scent of humanity. People hurry across the city till 7 in the morning to muster up enough provisions to see through the day. And the caravan lies on the fringes, bearing the slap on its face for a sin that it isn’t even involved in. The curse is born of the sedentary culture. What do they have to do in all this? 

All health establishments from a quack to a Harvard returnee doctor are usually crammed to the gills with patients, throughout the year, all days, almost all hours and even minutes. It would make one wonder how come literally everyone is sick. Under the lockdown, my only query is: where are all those perpetual patients? All these neighborhood clinics and nursing homes and quack shops are empty and out of business. And surprisingly, the mortality rates haven’t gone up due to the shortage of these services. Haven’t we got habituated to fall sick and run to get medicines? Falling sick seems to be a habit these days. I mean, you have the markets crammed with consumer items and most of the times we just buy even when we don’t need the things urgently. With health services scattered all around, possibly we itch like a consumer to avail their services somehow in a consumerist mode.

Well, here is a silver lining at last. The big, fat, cumbersome and earthshaking Indian weddings are postponed. Less population growth rate at long last. Hail Corona at least on this! But then you have gallants still out there to hit the bed of matrimony. There are virtual marriages through Whatsapp video calls. The groom then takes his princess on a bike. Some take pheras in masks. Well, in a typical arranged marriage in India, the bride and groom hardly know anything about each other. With masks on, it must be like two aliens getting married, I mean a Maritan and an Earthling! And where is social distancing on the conjugal night!?

The WHO that has turned into CHO is again and again parroting about the natural cause of the virus. It’s a well fed parrot that has been crammed to the guts with monetary chilies by its patron China. The WHO is praising China’s efforts in managing the pandemic—can you believe it, the world’s premiere health body is praising a country whose secrecy and mismanagement has brought humanity to such a disaster. Their economic clouts will help them more than their nukes. Why then waste so much of economy over redundant whales that are buried in bunkers. Use the same money to strengthen the economic clout.

They but won’t even mention Taiwan, the country that has set up the best example on how to manage the virus: Just 400 plus cases and only 8 deaths. Can you believe it? The WHO but, under the Chinese influence, doesn’t even invite them at meetings to share their expertise. All those who are eager to bring China to the dock should recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation. The red-guards aren’t as much afraid of a nuke strike as they are of a sovereign Taiwan. There are always better means to bring the evil to book because the evil leaves many chinks in its armor through its own nature, inevitably.

People hardly have the guts to visit the friendly neighborhood barber. His effacing smile is hijacked by Corona’s sinister grin. With his hands twisting your chin, cheeks, nose and head, he appears like a Corona-hobnobbing yamdoot. Hair styling is gone down the winds. People are no longer dancing on the excited stage of life, so glitz and glamour has frizzled out. Bald is the most popular hairstyle. And people manage it with their own trustable trimmer. And believe me, going bald hasn’t shaken the universe as one apprehended earlier. Doesn’t it mean that most of our sophistication is born of our mind’s construct? Convenience fetches simplicity and more peace. Saloon keepers beware; you may be required to take up other professions.

Well, the communal spinoff of Corona keeps doing the rounds now and then. Media launched a well-managed witch-hunt for finding the ill-famed Corona and Islamic links. There were a few mischief mongers, but their over-enthusiasm resulted in the entire community being maligned. Who suffers? The common Muslim by birth who has to come out for a living and who has no role in the greater games of religion. At Lucknow, hotspots have been named after mosques. It’s an effort to throw chilies into the smoldering fire. Far away in the UAE, two expatriate Indians are sacked from their jobs for posting Islamophobic social media content. The OIC also puts up a notice against India for the current Islamophobic environment in India. They may have sensed something to arrive at the conclusion. But how can they stay blind to what China is doing to Uighur Muslims? Business is the only belief and faith of mankind. All other kinds of religions and Gods are merely the conceptions to sustain the business god.

Federalism is at its best as of now. The central cabinet is gone into a huddle and virtual instructions are almost symbolic. The states manage their fiefdoms and so do the district administrations. With the politicians gone into a pondering huddle, the bureaucracy is functioning at its best. We have seen a little glimpse of a non-politicized bureaucratic functioning for some time. It isn’t disappointing I tell you. With the political mind just focused on Corona, the honest officers get a lucky lease to operate as per their talent. Karnataka state government must be feeling very relaxed and unchained as they issue an instruction for the online application to enter or exit the state. Aren’t all these boundaries our mind constructs? Now Karnataka border is as good as an international border, at least in effect.

Kim Jong has been seen. Or was it is his double? There is speculation. Well, whether it’s fake or real, the medal he receives is surely genuine. President Putin has awarded the North Korean dictator a World War 2 commemorative medal. Is it an honor from one pseudo dictator to another real one? In effect both are the same. But just imagine, what wearing one’s heart on sleeve gets one into? Pseudoism has the benefits of a world leader; real face gets bricks of tyranny.

At long last, the African countries are realizing the parasitic relationship with China. Trapped in debt and attacked with racial slur, there are voices of dissent. Hope better sense will prevail and the rulers there will think of their impoverished subjects instead of just getting Swiss accounts hitting the vaults in hobnobbing with China.

Well, the misfortune of millions usually results in the fortune of the few. Same will happen post-pandemic. The stampede tramples the weakest. The fortunate ones usually stay afloat to mint more money out of the miseries. The international drugs and pharmaceutical cartels will of course make huge money. The poor will just think of gathering their scattered sinews after the storm. The wealthy ones find new opportunities as life and living will take onto course again.

And finally the booze gets unleashed. How long it could have been contained? A liquorless India is almost unrecognizable. It’s no India at all! The masses lynched by the agonies of survival hit the bottle to forget past, present and future after the back-breaking toil and the state mints money. No wonder all drunkards contribute so massively to the cause of nation building. The revenue from the liquor industry is too massive for the government to even think of people going without the potion of forgetfulness. With all industries closed during the lockdown, and the sources of revenue drying up, the government fell back upon the kind, old booze. Now all social distancing norms fell flat. Where is the Muslim-hunting media? Most of these are Hindus. Is a crowd of Hindus less risky during Corona pandemic than a Muslim crowd? Think of it. And please save yourself from the sins of sowing the seeds of another partition of the country down the line.

So the happiest news of the past few weeks hits the screen. Wine shops open. The boozers hit the ceilings in ecstasy. Worried wives and children meanwhile curse the government. Many women even protested against the opening of the wine outlets. But modern society means business only. No one can stop the wine industry. The customary rounds of domestic violence start again. The peace is broken. A man may think for ten days about spending money on his children’s books, but instinctively runs with all his savings to purchase wine without wasting even a second. Empty pockets suddenly get money from somewhere. There are miles long queues. The business has started. India is back on the track. The economy has taken up. The wine has the power of drawing money out of the most miserly pockets.

A man is showering flowers at our boozy nation-builders as they wait in hot summers with money in their pockets and the will to make India great again. ‘You are the economy of our country!’ he says. They stand with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. The government is also eager to help them contribute more for nation building. There is an extra cess to the tune of 70%. They are happy to pay. Let there be a 10 paisa increase in petrol prices, many voices cry foul. The wine pandemic has the capability to beat the poor Corona Pandemic.

Geeta and Ramayan are to be shown on the JNU campus. Mythology pill served to cure the ancient scourge of communism on the campus. As the world frantically searches for a cure to Corona, the government is helplessly trying to find a cure for the indomitable campus bug at the JNU. It’s very obstinate and is stuck up to the political khadi like an angry nettle thorn.

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With his humanistic Covid-wartime measures, PM Modi has earned much appreciation internationally. He has the potential to emerge as the most influential world leader. He has so much to offer not just to India but to the entire world. The Indian PM’s voice is keenly anticipated at the NAM virtual summit. The group of 120 non-aligned countries has the potential to emerge as an effective block in the coming times as geopolitics will be churned vigorously to produce various permutations and combinations.

Humanity takes an evasive stance as the hordes of migrant workers offloaded by Shramik trains at their native railways stations get welcomed with jet sprays of disinfectants like you spray a lifeless chair. They get the cleansing spray holistically, their bundles, sacks and all possessions and their bodies. Little do they realize the virus may be safely cocooned inside the system, thus beating both the temperature guns and disinfectant cannon fires. The human body is too sturdy a battle gear for the errant Corona. 

The out of job barbers are making up for their loss of business. There are many who don’t have a trimmer of their own. So barbers help them in harvesting their crop for an all-clean ground at 100 rupees. Profits! People have to make money despite all that is happening around. Illegal and illicit liquor is warming many a pocket. The ubiquitous beedis are in shortage. One little packet of beedis is selling at 10 times its normal price. It is the mere grassroots level manifestation to make profits out of the pandemic. The rat race to make profits will cascade upwards at higher levels to include corporations, countries and organizations, who will come forward to earn quick bucks in the name of alleviating humanity’s pains.

A guy in the neighborhood created a mini storm in the locality. He and one other guy had gone to repair the tractor of a farmer. The farmer turned out to be Corona positive. Surprisingly, he turns out to be an aware farmer also. A rare combination indeed! He informs the tractor agency about his status and asks them to get their mechanics tested as well. One of the guys immediately ran to the city for testing along with five other guys with whom he was smoking hukka when the news reached him. The other guy but thought of dodging the issue and was heard saying, ‘I will infect all people in the locality!’ Scared people called the village head and the police to get him tamed. His house now bears the Covid-19 quarantine status poster. He is seen sitting by his house like a chained sullen monkey.

Those who can’t help the urge to punish China for the Corona curse, there is a non-violent way to hit the dragon where it hurts the most. The war threat in future will be biological in nature mostly and retaliations will be in the form of economic skirmishes. Much as we suffer with our social distancing, China can be made to pay with economic distancing. Intending countries should systematically cut down their trade deficits with China. Now, the funniest of the funny thing in this tragedy! China is open to international investigation into the issue of Corona origin in its territory. Massive surprise, how can they be so open! Wait, the air of surprise will pass out with their precondition. They want the international probe to be undertaken by the WHO! It’s like a thief asking the judge to allow the investigation to be done by his friend thief.

Long before China, it was Taiwan that informed the WHO about the mysterious influenza and its human to human transmission. Ironically, the WHO doesn’t even recognize Taiwan. So they didn’t even listen to what the tiny island nation was pointing to. China still wields an immense economic clout. As long as it has the economics to shield its sins, it’s safe. If not for this, the EU—the worst sufferer block in the pandemic—won’t still be willing to accommodate China despite their terrible losses. Their helplessness is understandable. But it would serve humanity in giving Taiwan the status they deserve. They are a democracy. Nurture them and shield them directly now, don’t feel shy.

Small countries around the South China Sea are holding with courage against the fire-spitting dragon as the bully grabs disputed islands in the sea. The communist hunger for land is insatiable. It’s endlessly refreshing its gluttony. The world is almost dying with the pandemic, they but are still blood-shot sure about their hegemony. To give another clue to the Chinese hunger for land, a Chinese expert has published an article on a reputed Chinese website. He has dug a bit deeper into the history to say that Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan belonged to Changez Khan Empire, so now these should also be included in the Chinese territory. Nothing wrong with the logic! But by the same logic, Somalia has the right to the entire globe because the first band of Homo-sapiens started from East Africa to colonize the earth. So Somalia has a sturdier right in strictly legal terms.

The superpower’s woes are not bowing down in the least. It seems like bugs from the East have taken a liking for the land of opportunities. Asian Giant Hornet (Murder Hornet) has been found on the American soil. It kills honeybees and destroys agriculture. To make it worse, a group can kill a human with multiple bites. Let’s hope they don’t take a fancy for the lush green White House premises. If that happens, the radars will be busy in picking out bees instead of Chinese and Russian missiles. 

ZARA is manufacturing medical supplies. Who cares for luxury fashion, when locked inside the house one pair of funny boxers and crumpled T-shirt can give the Kingly feeling. Inside one’s house, there is no image to maintain. There is hardly anyone to pass judgments. If at all, one’s sniggering spouse will say something, which still would be the same even if one gets attired in the world’s best wares. So who cares for the high-end luxury fashion!? So ZARA makes face masks. Hasn’t the world come upside down? Our skulls had gone reverse earlier, so now dangling like bats may be we will read the message straight.

Russia is now rapidly evolving to the level of Europe and America. Great progress! In Corona terms I mean. There are 240,000 cases. Surprisingly, only 2000 people have fell to the virus, while with the same number of infections, other countries have lost 30 to 40,000 people. Either the Russians have the best immunity—in that case their platelets can save many lives outside Russia—or the errant kid China has given them some vaccine. In the latter case, the errant kid ought to hand over the vaccine to the outside world also. But who trusts the quality of Chinese products these days.

Far away in the Naxalite-infested forests of Chhatisgardh, thousands of migrant workers are walking on foot from Telangana to Jharkhand. They carry their Covid quarantine status stamps on the back of their hands. The status is ‘quarantine’ strictly but they are free to roam the dangerous forests to find their path to survival. I hope the forest animals and the tribal people won’t object to their entry there as possible Corona carriers. As they move ahead, hungry, beaten and thoroughly bruised, the Indians outside splurge 1000 crore on liquor purchase on the first day of opening of the wine outlets. Huge celebrations at least in one section of society! Of course, our king boozers have set the economic wheels spinning again. God keep their drinking appetite for they are the saviors of our economy at the moment.  

The Corona knot gets strangled further. A top Corona scientist of the Chinese origin has been murdered in America. The US has accused China of stealing Covid-19 vaccine research. There is much-much more to this Corona affair than it meets the eyes of a commoner like you or me. Let’s wait till things become public. Or do they ever become public? I mean the version that reaches us is filtered selectively to the extent of being a gossip-worthy puny thing over tea. The facts are kept under the carpet. What we believe to be reality is simply a convenient assemblage of doctored facts to churn out expected opinions and rumors. Well, marvelous is the art and craft of the leaders to rule over the meek horde of sheep.

Along the India-China border, across the rugged terrain, the volatile relationship between the two Asian giants takes serpent curves. The actual lines of control are sprawled across immense stretches of inhospitable land. The patrol parties from both ends push against each other through cute skirmishes usually. They shout foul words, throw lewd gestures, throw stones and in the worst case scenario they scuffle and push each other like wrestlers. I think massive bodied Sikh troops can heave around many a small Chinese troop. So another cute front gets opened in Sikkim. India China troops throw stones at each other leaving 7 Chinese and 4 Indians injured. We Indians take solace in defeating them in the numbers of injured. A victory at long last! Why make missiles when we can cutely fight with stones?! Chinese choppers are seen near the LAC in Akshai Chin. The bored Indian Air Force pilots get some adventure and they rush to shake our own skies with the latest warplanes. Very cute warfare these are, I tell you. How I wish all our wars ended at this level only. Like a porcupine stretching up its needles and staring at an ant eater and both of them going their own ways after gratifying their egos a bit.

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The world definitely has to look beyond Corona. After all, it cannot just be a Corona-centric world forever. Lockdown 4.0 beginning from May 18 will definitely have easing of restrictions. As more and more countries have come to terms with the existence of the Wuhan virus, the easing of lockdown measures has begun. The real test of individual precaution and immunity will happen when we come out of the trenches and face the enemy in the eye. Let’s hope we have the vaccine when we decide to fight in the open.

If at all there has to be a war among we humans, let it be a cute war. Mind you, a cute war avoids bloodshed and gratifies our egos almost in the same way a bloody war does. Winning in a street pebbles game and at Olympics has the same parameters qualitatively. There is just quantitative difference. So why take animosity to the level of blood-bathing when we can have our innocuous brawls. Sanity has sunk in the Indian and Pakistani minds. We have decided to engage in a cute war, the Weather War. Instead of going for surgical strikes in the POK, we have issued weather bulletins on the Pakistan occupied territory of Kashmir, thus implying that it belongs to us. Pakistan also hits back by broadcasting weather report of Ladhak. They but misfire even here. The hilarious goof-up: they say maximum temperature is  ̶ 4 ͦ C and the minimum is  ̶ 1 ͦ C. What a lovely and cute weather soldier they have at radio Pakistan. He is right as far as digits are concerned. But there is a thing called minus sign also. Pakistani government, kindly train them well for the weather war.

To prepare us for a much transformed Lockdown 4.0, the honorable PM addresses the nation for the fifth time during the tough phase. His address isn’t Corona centric this time. He exhorts Indians to move ahead and become self-reliant. I think it’s the best way to cut China to its size by robbing them of such a huge market that we have offered them on a platter. The trade deficit is too much: we export worth 60,000 crore and import 425,000 crores. Do you still need to know where we should aim to hit. Again a cute war! Make their exports to India redundant.

The PM has laid down the foundation of a self-reliant India by announcing an economic package worth 20 lac crores in 2020. ‘Be vocal for the local!’ he gives the clarion call. He exhorts we Indians to look beyond Corona by coming out with basic precautions and see through the transitory Lockdown 4.0 to move ahead with reasonable protection to full scale progress and development.

We have the potential to become the manufacturing hub of the world. With 20% share, the Indian generic pharmaceutical industry is literally the pharmacy of the world. Let there be a vaccine developed anywhere in the world, they have to depend on the Indian generic pharmaceutical industry for mass production and supply.

In a globalized world, wars will be primarily economic in cold phase and biological during the hot phase. The heat of the hot phase we are all bearing currently. The cold phase in economic terms will follow. Australia has been vocal about international investigation to look into the virus issue in China. An angry China hits back by cancelling a beef order worth 2 billion dollars from Australia. Again cute salvos in a cuddly war. Let’s continue doing that. It’s funny and interesting at the same time.   

The one-party system in China has all that it takes to misuse power. There is hardly any balance of power. At the grossest level of existence, 'Truth' is a little candy held tightly in the fist of the hand that is 'Powerful'! A dictatorial regime twists ‘Truth’ to scatter it to dust around. It blinds the masses with the rising dust of ideology. Let’s—through cute wars only—ask them to have at least one opposition party, however weak it might be to begin with. It will help us to forget our injured democracies, if even the fake opposition in the red bastion takes comic salvos now and then at the real power center. One cuter salvo in the cute war against China: Put Taiwan on the forefront at the WHO meets to discuss the effective measures to stop and handle the pandemic. It’s better to throw chili in the enemy’s eye instead of throwing grenades.

Now another theory has surfaced. It says Wuhan had Corona cases as far back as September last. A team of doctors in masks and PPEs had thronged the Wuhan airport after getting the reports that an airplane passenger had collapsed suddenly. They made it pass as a military drill to manage emergency medical situations. In October, Wuhan hosted the world military games in which 10,000 military personnel form over the globe participated. Many participants now tell that they felt sick with influenza type symptoms. In fact, France has tracked its zero patient to be a woman who visited the store operated by the wife of one of the military personnel who visited Wuhan for the games. It was way down the line on December 31 that China announced the outbreak. If that is the case, it makes it equally serious to the theory of deliberate or accidental leak from the lab.

Even in the darkest hour, a smile is just one breath away, provided we give it a chance. Even in the fiery pits of burning summer, a blossom awaits our cool, caring shade to smile for life and living. Enjoy the smile of a sun-shaded rose. I have put the rose in a shade to give it a chance against the merciless heat. It dazzles the hot air in the shade with a winsome smile. This is what I do to stay meaningful to life and living within my premises. Creation is creation. I facilitate the creation of these little smiles. And when the afternoon sunrays come to kiss the shy, shaded beauty for a brief flirtatious moment, she opens her heart and gives a full smile. Guys, don't miss to smile even at those who mean to rob you of your smile. Our own frown eats our smile, not other's intentions. When you come out of the trenches, be your better version. I suggest a recipe as well. The recipe of a perfect human being: strong body, sharp mind and soft heart. I mean Shiva. Try to be Shiva. That will be the best form of Shiva worship.

At the personal level, it has been the worst time in my life. Here are the most meaningful words spoken to me during the last few months—as I tried to steady my feet after the most irremediable loss of my life—by a Tibetan Buddhist Friend. Truth seems to have showered her with the ultimate grace during her months-long meditations in the snow-clad caves in Ladhak. Thanks o seeker of truth for balming my bruised soul through such simple and succinct words:

‘We have been born to learn about the love and impermanence of life, and we will have to learn this lesson again and again until we have eternal peace before every injury!’

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