A sweet-sour saga during Corona times

The worldwide figure of Corona infected people has crossed one million. More than 50,000 people have fallen victim to the virus. America alone has more than a quarter millions infections. Health service workers are protesting against the lack of medical facilities and personal protection equipment. There is shortage of ventilators, masks and gloves in America. Doctors are forced to use the same mask for days on end. Can you believe it? These are the scenes usually stalking the humanity in poor countries. Corona appears to have melted all differences across the globe. Let’s accept the force of temporariness and avoid the mistake of taking things for guaranteed! This much of collective sense will smoothen the path after this testing phase is over.   

   

Things are getting stretched between two extremes. You have people worshipping doctors like warrior gods against the deadly enemy. Then you have frustrated mobs attacking lady doctors doing their routine testing in suspected Corona case households. People are decorating the poor sweepers and municipal cleaners like grooms by putting flower and rupee garlands around their neck. Then you have Markaz Maulanas, who have been quarantined to save their own and others’ lives, misbehaving and even flashing in front of female medics. Can you believe it? NSA has been slammed against these people. They deserve it. It is nothing short of sedition against the country.

To make it more serious, a little group of mischief-mongers among the Muslims is doing the dirty trick of flaring the people’s emotions. While 99% of the Muslims are right there in the mainstream of our common pains and collective happiness, the little rascally group is trying its level best to turn the situation communal. You have the video of a blinded jihadist brave heart rubbing currency notes against his sneezy nose and proclaiming that it’s Allah’s scourge against the kafirs for their sins. What a moron! This Corona hardly knows whether it’s a Muslim or a Hindu cell.

As you have the Markaz Maulvis flouting all norms and almost deliberately spreading the virus, you have heart-melting pictures of a haggard old farmer wearing mask while riding his bullock cart. Well, nothing too newsworthy about it. Love for life is the primary instinct. To make it a remarkable affair, even the pair of bullocks pulling the cart have their muzzles covered under green masks. It’s a lovely picture of having compassion and love for life during these testing times.

The seemingly overworked PM again addresses the nation, for the fourth time in two weeks. People appear to pay heed to his words. He carries a moral power and speaks with honest conviction, which melts many a careless heart. The night is dark. He has exhorted the people to wage a war as the soldiers of light on the night of April 5 at 9 PM. He has asked people to switch off all bulbs and light up diyas, candles and even mobile torches as a symbol of mass support against the dark period. Such symbolic moments go a long way in sowing the concrete seeds of substantial action against the pandemic.

Isn’t it surprising that we can survive on the basic minimum, just at a tiny fraction of all the food, wealth, cars and consumer items we have ended up pooling and cramming to the ceilings in our households as well as in our minds! I think this is the time to realize the fine line separating need from greed.

The soldiers meant to defend borders are running community kitchens. The most flamboyant fashion houses, whose one weirdest most flimsy dress goes into building a momentum of millions of dollars, are working on making doctor coats and other medical clothing. Stadiums where million dollar players would kick the ball into the netting are being changed into quarantine shelters. Thousands of mammoth metallic birds, which boom across the skies, scaring all the lesser birds, have gone silent. It’s the time to reflect and go into acceptance of some hard facts and wrong choices.

Amid all the horrific tales of the Corona pandemic, the non-human part of nature finds it eerily quiet. On the spookily silent roads, a herd of mountain goats climbs down from the surrounding mountains and does a cautious goat parade on the smooth tarred road. Their hoofs clanking with a strange tip-tapping music, playing like a drum beat to finish the parade before the owners of the road come rushing down again in the mad race.

The spring sun is smiling with full brilliance. In my courtyard, the potted plants have happy healthy flowers. We may have lost our smiles for the time being, but the flowers try to put up a lesson. There have been storms, quite powerful ones, during the recent weeks, but the flowers haven’t lost their spirit. They continue blooming. Lesson for us! Of course, we will overcome the odds. It would be best if we emerge as a positively changed species once the dark night is over.

A purple sunbird is feeding on the nectar. It’s a little story of balanced give and take. No greed involved. Hovering over the flowers, it gathers its late morning breakfast. The flowers are getting their kissing pollinators in return. Under the late spring’s harsh sunlight, its glossy black color gives metallic blue iridescence. The little foot-soldier of Mother Nature with its down-curved bill is busy in its duty to survive and fulfill its role in the larger scheme. Its rapid ringing notes send a message of happiness and contentment. I stand mesmerized. My restful happy look doesn’t create panic ripples in the air around. It goes on with its job on the flowers just three feet away. I am transfixed. I feel honored to be there in the selfless arena of Mother Nature not as an intruder, but as a respectful spectator.

    

Somewhere in India, in the oddly silent and uncrowded premises of a gated colony, a cobra lays claim on a bit of life and living on the abandoned stage. Don't panic and don't get offended. The roads are empty and the vehicles are free for a ride. He wants to go for a joyride! The people staring from balconies and by their gates are scared. It has got into the headlamp guard of a scooty. It lops out its tongue, sensing the danger running through the human blood in the form of panic hormones. People are making videos from a safe distance. A snake catcher pries open the covering. And there it pops out. Its hood taut, ready to take on the entire group of people around. It hisses and sways with confidence. It has to create fear. It’s hardly interested in wasting its precious venom on something it cannot eat to survive. However, our inherent fears turn us blind to its mock threats, taking it as an assault on humanity. No wonder, mobs run to kill a snake with the wildest enthusiasm. Thank God, there is a snake catcher on the scene. Moreover, the humanity is on the backfoot right now and they don’t seem too eager to get it killed.

How I wish it showed its majestic hood at our place! In this episode, he has graced Bhopal where my sister stays. It’s adventurous to look at its typical Cobra fearlessness. Its instincts to stand face to face against all odds. A symbol of Lord Shiva's destructive attributes, which are as important as the forces of creation. A beautiful creature! I once remember walking outside my village. There it came, the majestic black shiny cobra. They say it's very confident. And why won't it be!? It will not change its path. It raised its hood from a little distance. I marveled at its confidence and majesty. I gracefully backed out, looking at it, lost in its sweeping powers to hiss furiously for survival.

Faraway in the Amazon forests, a Jaguar pounces on a crocodile basking under the sun on a sand bar in a river flood plain. If at all you can't help being predatory, then try messing up with a bigger rascal than you! If you engage with a bigger villain than yourself, without trampling the world of feebler hearts than you, and tame and trample the idiot, even the biggest moralists will hardly have anything to condemn you for your bloodied ways. Beyond the equation of right or wrong, on the impartial raw stage of life and living, the gutsy predator fights the huge reptile right there in its own territory and earns its meal in a fair and square way. Probably, it bravely walks on the tightrope of life and death with equal probability for each every second, every moment.

In the desert state of Rajasthan, around a public fountain a mother monkey trains her little son in the art of becoming a man. Water basin is a narrow rectangular diving pool. A tall aesthetically done, decorative, stone-worked column overlooks the narrow diving pool. The little monkey has to dive to join the league of prestige and manly entitlements. It hesitates. The pool below is quite narrow and height is quite daunting for its small frame. Mismanage your jump and there can be severe injuries or even death. The mother but pushes from behind. The little coma of hesitation is deleted by her to write the success story of her upbringing her kids with a fine balance of maternal care and hard teachership. All we need is a push from behind by the mother to conquer our fears and take on life and be a man of character, the trophy of her tapasya!

In the tropical grasslands somewhere, with spring air singing the songs of love and passion, the marvelous game of life and living unfolds. The grass is tall. The black shiny widowbird has to jump higher and higher to beat all rivals. Its long tail is swaying as its insignia of manhood. She watches from a high branch. Keep hopping and hopping. High jumps and the ability to last till the end when there is no rival left are the formula of success to sow the seeds of propagation from their individual end. And the hero nearly draws out the last out of his strength to dive into the pools of ecstasy later on. The field is left for him to gather his fruits in the form of her reciprocation to his passion. Keep jumping, keep jumping. Catch her attention! Persistence is the success mantra! Jump higher than the rest! Give your best. Tire yourself out. If nothing else, your aching, exhausted body will fetch you the grandest of sleep at night!

In the luscious green and buxom serenity of a Papua New Guinea forest, the Bowerbird's grand performance takes place beyond any disturbance and ripples from the human society. It’s beautiful bird with blue beak, yellow eyes having dark pupils, dazzling red throat and head, and shiny yellow black-fringed wings. A little feathery bouquet of multiple colors. Love is in the air. It dilates its pupils. It starts with an introductory jarring chirp of its overflowing passion and confidently begins the show. He puts up a mesmerizing show. The princess to be wooed is spell bound. Look into my eyes he says and deliciously dilates his pupils like a mischievous wizard. The feathered hypnotizer lets out wheezy weird calls and waves his wings like a brave matador's cape. She is transfixed. The show is so eye-catching. She can’t help it anymore. Her interest is aroused with a sweet feminine surrender. She drops him a hint. Picks a wild berry in her beak and drops it on the ground. It’s a bouquet of love, her reciprocation. He picks up the bouquet and continues with the rhythmic steps which soon progress into a foreplay. He head-butts her bosom. Intimacy builds up. It’s the opportune time to take the experience to its peak. The rival but arrives at the worst possible time. What a loss. The lovemaking moment is lost like a shape of clouds disappears on the infinite blue of the vast sky canvas. O thou crestfallen lovebirds, never lose hope. Disappointments are written large everywhere, especially with love. Give your best, like him, woo your woman to the core of your soul, and leave the rest to destiny. Sometimes things don't work even if there is consent written largely in her eyes. Keep flying. Keep smiling. Don't lose heart. Maybe you haven't yet come across your soul mate!

In an African jungle hut, an Orangutan is sawing off tree boughs like we humans saw logs. She is totally wild. The saw dust flies as she expertly saws it off, using her legs to steady the log. She manages to make smart pieces. O thou pausing humans, give them some more time to make their own huts. They are entitled to this support because you have been through this stage earlier.

Now tell me, with so much of life and living still going on with majestic ease, will Mother Nature be that merciless to keep we humans away from such bliss for too long? It certainly will not! We have been put into quarantine just as a mild punitive assignment to mind our behavior.

Prepare for the next stage of your individual battle!

The Markaz Maulana has gone into hiding after spreading mischief and sowing the seeds of suspicion against the minority. Can you believe people still take their words when they proclaim: ‘Corona doesn’t spread in Masjids!’ It’s good to have unqualified and unconditional faith. But even the object of one’s faith would like some common sense among the followers. When they say that crowds in Masjids are safe from Corona, it’s as foolish to proclaim that you won’t be killed if you jump in front of a speeding truck. Allah loves you, but expects you to be loving and careful also, apart from having unconditional faith in Him.

Almost all the Muslims in India are peace loving citizens. Still there is a significant chunk who have been brainwashed in the name of faith to wage Jihad against the so-called non-believers. If they can destroy their bodies with suicide vests, the prospect of carrying Corona, where there is a big chance of survival of the self as well in comparison to the explosives, the prospect of offering their services as the live-agents of Corona are very much high. One can never rule this out.

Thousands had gathered at the Nizamuddin congregation. They have now spread into all four directions of the country. Many are still hiding and not coming forth for testing and isolation. The government has been hard-pressed to track their footprints in the chaotic well-beaten paths of populous India, making it very difficult to trace these virus carriers. You can expect Hindus to be offended. And out of the millions of offended Hindus, a few overzealous ones, having vested communal interests, may rake up the communal fire. Who will suffer? Of course, the poor, innocent commoners in the fold of Islam. The real culprits are too smart and shady and manage to sneak out. The communal consequences of the Corona pandemic can be really catastrophic in India.

The people are debating about the options of mass testing or isolation. Mass testing has worked in South Korea. But we should not forget, they are small countries with manageable population. There are hardly any social challenges put forth on the basis of caste, class, creed or religion. India is a mammoth society, always sitting on the Pandora box of countless differences ready to flare up at the slightest instigation. We have slum areas which have more population than the entire capitals of medium-sized countries. So we are hard-pressed when it comes to manage Corona like South Korea did.

Ideally, mass testing and complete lockdown are the best options against a virus that has no vaccination. Unfortunately, India hardly has any option in this regard. Our best chance lies in complete lock-down and keep pushing the deadline of community spread for as long as possible, allowing more and more time for mass awareness to sink into the roots of the individual conscience. There will be a community spread. There is hardly any doubt about it. But we can postpone that and break the momentum for exponential growth as witnessed in Western countries. Let there be a case anywhere and just clamp down on the locality and focus on the entire area with more strict measures. These are minor check-dams against the Tsunami. Of course, testing rates will go up as more and more focus is diverted to these relatively high risk areas. All we can do beyond is to hope for people’s cooperation in following the lockdown rules and then keep waging their daily battles to stay happy and healthy indoors.

Measures like changing railway coaches into quarantines centers are very practical. We have one of the largest railway networks in the world. These definitely have high prospects against the pandemic as mobile field hospitals.

As people like you and we are waging our individual battles against the pandemic by compromising on our freedoms, economic and social interests, the time and pause should be thoroughly utilized in preparing for the second stage of the fight. Right now we are fighting from our little posts, from the security of our houses. We have lot of choices. We have many safety sets defined by our four walls and our freedom to choose regarding what to do and what not to do. The individual safety manual during the lockdown has been repeated countless times till now. I think all of us can recall it with more clarity than any other theological or common interest book. The manual for personal isolation, the rules of individual hygiene, the rules of dos and donts. Recheck it if you haven’t done even till now!

However, what after the fight comes out in the open at the next stage? There is hardly any possibility that we will have a vaccine against Corona within the next one year. And no country can afford to shut down completely for that amount of time. It means we will have to come out to survive. Presently, it’s like a family patriarch or matriarch has stocked food and economic means for the emergency one or two months, so it is easier to fight from the safety of one’s house. But when the food is spent and you are forced to come out to wage another battle of socio-economic survival, and you still don’t have any vaccine, there will be equal chance of anyone getting infected anywhere in the world? What will you do?

You hardly have a choice about controlling the externals in this case. All you can do is to strengthen your immunity, forge your framework of holistic health, the sum total of your mental, physical and emotional health. Start preparing for that well in advance. All of us do have some idea about how to be mentally, physically and emotionally strong. Churn out your own individual survival kit. There is hardly any specific set of rules about that. Your inner self will guide you for that. We have commonalities to strengthen our physical selves, but we do have different emotional and mental needs to boost up our systems. Work out your holistic health plan while you have the option of staying within the safe premises of your house. Don’t postpone it. For you surely have to come out, right there on the broad stage of life, where there will be equal possibility of anyone getting infected anywhere in the world. The only vaccine as of now is how much aware we are and what we do to strength our ramparts for the second stage of war in the open battlefield.

Right now it’s like guerilla warfare. The next stage will be an open battlefield. There the stronger will survive and the weak may perish. It’s never too late. All of us have our strengths. Build upon that. Cut down on the weaknesses. Who knows it may come out as a happier and healthier world after this crisis is over!

Of little smiles and big pains!

Newspaper, electronic media and social media are now hijacked by the Corona thing. The situation is definitely serious. If developed countries having far better infrastructure, medical facilities, robust economies and sparse population are suffering so terribly, imagine what would happen to India if the epidemic reaches the third stage of community transfer. It must be already in that state. We are but trying our level best to believe that it is still the second stage. The entire country is looking at the numbers of confirmed cases with bated breath and a feeling of dread. The game winning has reversed. With cases shooting off into hundreds of thousands in the US and the Europe, it is about the least numbers that signifies success now. Government of India appears helplessly trying to strengthen feeble coastal embankments while the massive Tsunami reaches towards the coast.

To be a real patriot now all you have to do is to do absolutely nothing. You just sit at home and quell your desire to roam free in the mad race. Earlier, being a patriot required you to sacrifice your blood, vanquish the enemy, do this, do that, all doing, doing and still doing as much possible. Now, all you have to do is to absolutely nothing, and you win more odds in favor of your life. The government is in fact acknowledging you as a try patriot and nation builder if you agree to stay home.  

Criminal negligence and utter insensitivity for a joint humanity are the breaches in the fort work being set up against the Corona assault. Nothing sort of treason, I tell you. While the Indian PM has been pleading to the masses to stay indoors and in isolation, people try to sneak out like hen from their coop. In Nizamuddin, Delhi, a congregation of about 2000 evangelical Islamic preachers, Tabligi zamaat, flouted all humanistic and legal norms to stay in a building, which looks like a gaol market under the present situation. Here they shared communal kitchen and engaged in religious discourse. I respect their enthusiasm for serving the cause of Islam. But, isn’t being sensitive enough to follow instructions to help avoid the spreading of the epidemic also serving the cause of Allah?

The Maulvis then shot off into different corners of the country like live bio-grenades to infect people. They may not have done it deliberately, but the task is nothing short of bio-terrorism and they look like suicide bombers—carrying the corona vests tied to their cells-if we calculate the risks they have spread in terms of community transfer. Zeal for faith is one thing. But equally important is the consideration of safety of the people. If your love for your God doesn’t turn you sensitive and considerate enough to respect the value of life over all, including those of other faiths, then there is high time you go into self-introspection and learn the real meaning of the religious tenets you have been mindlessly cramming for centuries. The offender Maulvis should be traced, quarantined and penalized by forcing them into a bit of secular education meant to turn a person more loving and caring. Given their fright for anything outside the scope of Islam, I think they will find it even worse than being sent to the gallows. So it will be an ample punishment for the errant soldiers of faith.

Given this rampant breach of safety norms by the Maulvis, already there are communal interpretations of the incident. They must not have done it deliberately, only being turned stone deaf to the PM’s teary appeals to follow the norms as clarion calls of the champions of Islam buzzed through their neurons, but the common people are only capable to interpret it as a deliberate effort. Already the rumor machine is working faster than Corona. In the countryside people are saying that escaped champions of Jihad are rubbing their saliva at gate and door latches to punish as many kafirs as possible. The situation turning communal is the worst we can expect at the moment. Gods of all faiths please save us as one common species, the poor self-fucking Homo-sapiens!

Evil Corona seems to tear apart our social fabric apart from our bodies. There are instances of house owners asking their medical staff tenants to vacate their properties, fearing the angels fighting in the front-line against the devil will bring Corona to their threshold. Worse still, there are heartbreaking episodes of panicked crowds chasing away doctors who go for testing and asking the suspects to go into quarantine. If you self-shoot your own front-line soldiers in the fight, it’s nothing short of collective suicide.

The conduct of police during the crisis has won my heart. They are going out of all their routine calls of service and doing everything they can do. After duty hours, lady cops are sewing sanitary masks, cooking, serving food. The families of the cops are helping their valiant soldier by doing all they can do to contribute to the cause. Still there is ample of goodness left to defeat the hellish virus. People are setting up community kitchens and making arrangements for the homeless to stay indoors at community centers.

People seem to be discovering new terms of being human. That seems to be the only icing on the cake. A municipal garbage collector, clad in his poor sanitary worker’s green jacket, his weapons against the invisible enemy being just a mask, his feet in tattered slippers, slowly pulling his rickshaw cart of garbage dump, is showered with flowers by the people clapping, cheering and applauding from their balconies. He looks up. His faceless persona lights up with a newfound pride. For the first time he is visible. Earlier even the stray dogs were more visible. He has tears of pride in his eyes. People shout their loads of gratitude. He pulls his rickety cart with renewed strength.

There are many who are so restless that they can’t bear the ignominy of staying indoors for so long and would slip out like errant kids. The police catches them. Now the severe most punishment for the restless types is to force them into the art of restfulness, Yoga. The police lines them up, right there in the middle of the deserted road and they are sternly taught to do Yoga. Given their stiffness of bodies and frigidity of uncaring, inconsiderate heart, they seem to have undergone the Yoga torture for the first time in life. They would prefer even hard leather work on their bums in order to avoid this Yoga torture. Well, police knows to hit where it hurts the most!

Medical staffs are getting infected. God forbid if the soldiers of the war against the Corona start deserting the field. In Italy, Spain, France, UK and America things are moving to an unprecedented chaos. In Spain, with medical facilities falling short, they are forced to give ventilator to younger people instead of the old patients who might have lesser chance of survival. Patients are lying in the corridors just like they do in poor third world countries. Corona has eaten away all globe-shaking issue of nationality, economic wars, military rivalries and strategic game-planning. It’s just one little species fighting for survival. Hope the feeling of unity in the fight against Corona continues even after this episode is over. We will need it more and more in future because challenges will be global in future instead of being local, regional and national like in the past. This acceptance will do us the best favor we can do to ourselves.

Medical experts say, and there are statistics to prove it also, the males are more vulnerable to Covid-19. Their behavioral aspects of smoking, drinking and other indiscipline in life leave their immunity on the lesser side in comparison to females. There are social, biological and behavioral reasons for that. Males are predominantly responsible for the things having gone wrong on this planet. So by hitting males more than females, Mother Nature is passing a message: Let there be higher participation of females in planning and running the affairs of this world. Their greater role in running the world will turn it into a better world I swear!

Corona is doing some sort of reverse engineering. Poor people, who are yoked in the rough and gruff of life, are sitting idle and washing their hands regularly. They will have the best shiny versions of their poor peoples’ hands. They will have softer, shinier hands! The rich and privileged on the other hand have to do all their household chores, so their hands will acquire rough avatar. Limitless are the somersaults of fate: a king can turn a beggar and a beggar may become a king. So never ever commit the mistake of taking anything for granted. Things are simply in a flux. 

  

Imran Khan gives a lot of human rights lectures about India. Right now, during this Corona crisis, when people have become suddenly jobless, they push out poor Hindu and Sikh families from the queues waiting for ration and food. Pakistan is an officially Islamic country. They can do it as per their constitution and religious priority, but as per the holy laws of Koran, there can’t be a bigger sin than discriminating against people on such grounds and deprive them of even a little meal. It has turned out to be one of the worst places on earth, I tell you. Muslims of India should feel thankful to Allah for being Indian citizens.

With abundance of consumerist supplies drying up from the globe, people should learn and hone the art of surviving on the basic minimum, just for need, not for greed. As you have more time with your children, tell them the story how Mother Earth was raped. Be frank in your acceptance of mass blunders of the current and past generations. Make them understand the value of sustainability. Confess. Set up an example to them about living a joyful life instead of an unhappy wealthy one. That will be your contribution: Churning out a valiant next gen soldier of sustainability to protect future. Laugh more, play games as per the suitability of your house, tell them stories, spend quality time. Misfortune comes with the prospects of new seeds and saplings after the storm is over. Use it properly, or be prepared for bigger ones in future.

All of us anywhere over the planet stand equal chances of being caught on the wrong foot by the Corona army. So, only preventive measures aren’t sufficient. Don’t just spend all your energy in panic washing of hands and getting locked up behind seven locks, go for curative ones also. Strengthen your immunity. All of us are net-doctors with plethora of knowledge and tips on the internet. Do everything possible to upscale your immunity including balanced diet, exercises, Yoga and meditation. Try to be a robust joyful soldier. Make your armor sturdier so that you can withstand the Corona arrows now and other bugs stalking in the roadside bushes as you again go out once this particular bug is vanquished.

A Corona-raided game

As people fight their individual battles of killing Corona from their hands by washing, washing and washing, peeling layers after layers of their skin in the chase after the enemy hidden in the pores, leaving them slim and delicate handed, the war appears to have turned further in favor of Corona. All of us are soft-handed soldiers now.

I realize this and make it a point to play badminton regularly. I still remember uncle’s diving shot, so try his unorthodox instruction to be a champion shuttler and a better soldier against rascal Corona. The game is such a fun though. The late evening silence is ruffled by slow breeze, which makes the game of badminton far more interesting and tricky in an open yard. Whenever there is a shuttle to my far right, forcing myself to remember the instruction, and firmly keeping my resolve to fight Corona, I try to dive. All I manage is a sideways gallop like a springbuck and hit it with so much of self-harming sadistic relish. It gives titillating sensation to hit it like this, so exhilarating that you even forget about the foul-toothed grin of the Corona soldiers peeping from the yard boundary.

The sight of my sideways springbuck jump must be really funny, as my niece bursts out giggling every time I turn a champion sideways-galloping springbuck. Apart from the self-driven reward of having been able to hit it like this, I usually get smashing returns almost hitting my nose as I recover after the effort. Moral of the story: it’s better to try predatory pounces like that of tigers. You stand a better chance in the game. Also, the bastard Corona will find a tiger more daunting than a cowardly springbuck. But the addiction is injurious primarily. And I continue with relish.

As the late evening moves towards a shy twilight, a dragonfly appears offended against the flying shuttle. It appears to chase it like a heat-seeking missile hell bent upon shooting it down. It tries a few attacking sorties. It swerves around from the branches nearby and whirrs about the escaping enemy object like a US Blackhawk helicopter. It has to give up finally. The target is too big for it.

During one of my sideways springbuck shots, the shuttle goes really high in the sky. It nearly hits the rudder of a huge-plumed peacock taking a struggling, buttock-bursting low flight over the yard having jumped, almost like it was going to commit suicide, from the neighboring roof. The micro-climate of the yard turned windy, given the massive feather fan going bamboozling overhead. A peacock storm! Possibly the airy dynamics avoids a hit at the flying ship’s rudder. It’s a criminal offense to hit a peacock. We are saved of the crime.

As the twilight builds up, making the game even more exciting among the murky mix of light and dark, the moon’s shy coquettish crescent and Venus’ passionate glare, like a crazy love couple, look down with dazzling brilliance. What a lovely spectator couple of our game! We try to lift the level of our game since we have such august people in the audience.

The bats come out and flutter overhead as the spoilers of the game. Bastardly, sleazy nocturnal witches! Their zigzag flutters appear ill-intentioned. A few small ones scurry around a few times, almost with no effect either to the players or the shuttle. But then a huge one arrives as a bullying criminal. Possibly it has fallen in love with the cutie shuttle. Chases it like a stalker. It comes so close to my niece’s racket that she shrieks with fear and takes to her heels. The hooligan has stopped the game. We should not forget that bats carry Corona virus. Probably, the Corona army riding in their hawkish drone is guiding it to spoil our game. Corona has a right to stop the game. It has already stopped the world of we humans. Rest of the non-human part of the world still moves as earlier, or even better.

Spring seeds for the best version of the self

Mother Nature seems to play Twenty20 cricket game in the year 2020. She found it an apt chronological phase to start hitting sixes rampantly. (Of course, it seduced China to fix the game.) We may cry foul, but that doesn’t matter. Foul has no relevance in the art of modern gameship, because we have already flouted all norms and fouled innumerable times. So the guardian angels stand neutral as her ball chases us around the field. All this while, She had been playing test cricket with her silent majesty, with calm demeanor, unperturbed mindfulness and inherent grace. Mankind then kept on getting onto a more and more adrenaline pumping game. They got into 50-50, one-dayer excitement. She still found it digestible somehow. However, the fast and furious kid started challenging her for Twenty20. There she loses her composure as the year strikes 2020 on the calendar. She decides to play Twenty20, racy, fast and furious, with sixes landing in the audience like deadly projectiles. Gone are those elegant ground-strokes to display class and take just one run or no run at all. Even classic defense earned laurels. So the ball turned into grenade and started giving bluish bumps on our heads. The crowd is in a melee now.

Well, the ball is nanometer size. We cry foul that we cannot see it as it lands on our bodies with sadistic glee. But it is Her game, just like we contrived so many to entertain ourselves. We cannot complain now. We have been playing ours. Now it is her turn. The ball is a nanometer monster cutie. It has spikes over it to lock into the play arena of our cells and then keep on rolling to the boundary for sixes and fours. If the immunity fielders can stop it, the player saves the day. If not, the player is clean bowled.

In the ensuing stampede, the game gone haywire, ‘Namaste’ is trending. Professional handshakes, cordial hugs and affectionate peck on cheeks all have been eaten and beaten by Corona for the time being. Humble ‘Namaste’ still stays out of Corona’s reach. Why? Simply because it’s so unassuming and simple to catch the evil bug’s devil eye. It’s so respectful. The virus is yet to breach its age-old rustic defenses. It has got the antibodies of unassuming grace and dignity, which has a hidden power even above the powers of any fee-fawing arrogant gesture.

‘Namaste’ means ‘Namah te’ in Sanskrit, i.e., I bow before you in full respect, taking you as a representative of God, a carrier of His godliness. Here lies the hope for the future. A humbler, less egoistic Homo-sapien is beneficial not just to the planet but to their own species also.

Now, let’s salvage our positives from the Corona chaos. Let us allow this symbolism carried by ‘Namaste’ to turn into substance in our persona. Let’s be more fluid, mellowed and receptive. Fluidity has the soft power of sneaking out of supposed deadlocks by unegoistically circuiting out of many a problem. Boulders of ego merely clog the biggest of mountain passes. Let us be supine. Let’s melt our frigid egos to be more caring, understanding and loving. Let’s bow respectfully and gracefully to the fundamental principles of life, the bedrock of our existence. Let’s worship life and loving with bowed heads. The blades of grass bend down and weather the fierce most of storms. Hardest oaks break and fall down, simply because they don’t bend down. Learn from nature. America, China and all other global power aspirants listening?

Automobiles are rushing to make ventilators. DRDO, instead of pioneering killer missiles, is making medical masks. Millions of migrant workers, who throng cities like an ant-swarm sticks to a jiggery lump, are fleeing away like rats jumping out of a sinking ship. They are ready to risk life and be with their poor families in wretchedly backward countryside, where even death seems more tolerable than the suffocating life in the Corona-infested cities. Celebrities whose one coquettish look can break as well as elate million of hearts are cooking, washing and cleaning—most probably for the first time in their lives—as the domestic helps vanish from the scene. Hasn’t the world come upside down? Sirsasna is good for health even though it comes with lots of practice and a bit of discomfort initially. But it overhauls life and living if you master it. So as we do penance and learn to do a collective Sirsasna, let’s learn it properly and read the message straight. What we have been doing is hardly sustainable. We were going rapidly down the precipice to fall off the cliff. Thank Mother Nature, and China’s maneuvering as an agent of the evil effect that we deserve, there has been a pause, forced though. Errant kids hardly listen to the corrective message straightaway, by the way. Now let’s go back to the kindergarten of the basics of life and forget about the research and post-doc universities for some time. Life has been turned too complex, a quagmire almost. Better to take a by-lane and rest for some time.

Even in the face of grave danger, not all seems lost. Historically, the police has been ill reputed to bruise bums with their sticks. They do it still, but their sticks never appeared more justified in falling over asses as people break the lockdown instructions. However, in penance for one strike on an offending bum, they are doing 1000 pious deeds, while being out there in high risk places. They have surprised me in being so holistically caring. You see a policeman delivering medicine to a differently abled old man; a policeman feeding rasgullah to a patient whose sugar has come down dangerously low; you watch in disbelief as policemen sing songs to entertain people looking bored from their balconies; you giggle with a tinkling in stomach as you see policewomen doing the arti with diyas to embarrass the thick-skinned rascals, the milder versions of full blown criminals penalized by law, who are shameless enough to break the curfew; police personnel cooking food in their own kitchens out of their own pockets and feeding the hungry. The list is endless. I am humbled in the face of this totally new face of policing in India. As we will come out of this dark shade, the entire country will acknowledge this humane face of the police. Moral of the story: a police personnel is the best version of himself or herself as a kind, considerate and helpful officer. So why don’t we have a society where police people are not just half villains forced to tame the full criminals. Let’s have a society where policing is constructive as a helper, the life sustainer, not just warding off the evil. Criminals listening? Mend your ways and allow police to be their best version!

Look at the changed equation! Doctors, nurses and paramedics are the new soldiers fighting lonesome, life-hazardous battles against the invisible enemy in isolation wards. The conventional soldiers with their guns and their patriotic blood boiling to kill and get killed look the worst version of a soldier. These doctors and their staff are the best version of soldiers who put their life in danger to save lives. Let’s have the best version, well respected and valued in terms of rewards and applauds. Once the gloom is over, let’s have soldiers who save, not just kill to ward off most of our virtual and assumed fears.

The highest have been infested and so have been the lowest. People from the royal families have died and so have the poorest of the poor. Lesson: it’s just one little humanity that is bound to suffer in the same ways if things go the wrong away. Let’s re-contrive our economic modules to allow the horizontal spread of benefits and the fruits of economic progress. Let’s transform economic growth into social development. The richest countries are suffering and the poorest are cowering with fear at the impending ill fate. Let the high and mighty draw some lessons out of this catastrophe and rethink about their priority. Let there be some institutionalized grooming of art and aesthetics, not just cold hard logic and reasoning. Emotions and sensitivities are the shock-absorbers against the impending falls born of frigid logic and unforgiving reasoning. Pure reasoning cannot sustain. It can sustain machines not humans as societies. To be logical, we have to stay sensitive also because we are flesh and blood creatures primarily.

In the politically stage-managed communal by-lanes of UP, thelotus of hope and love blooms in unthinkable circumstances. In Bulandshahr, an aged Hindu dies and his family can’t reach for cremation due to the lockdown. The diseased man’s Muslim neighbors perform the Hindu rituals to finish his journey. A group of Hindus manage to avail an ambulance and get a pregnant Muslim woman to hospital to save her life. A Hindu senior cop goes out of his ways to help a pregnant Muslim woman in reaching hospital in time for delivery. She delivers a baby boy. She hasn’t forgotten the act of kindness. She names her son after the cop: Ranvijaya Khan, a human being, half Hindu and Half Muslim in name, a blessed child who will be a living testimony to the triviality of man-created communal identities in the face of challenges that have no discrimination for caste, creed, class, nationality or religion. Hasn’t the antibody of goodness already started debugging the society of its evils? Does Corona stand a chance? Much as there is strife and suffering, but the strains of our best versions do hold the beacon of hope.

As economy crashes across countries, the money diplomacy should be scorned upon, as the new sun smiles once the night of the epidemic is over, especially China’s Yuan diplomacy of enslaving poor countries indirectly through debt trap. They should feel the Dragon’s python grip around their throat and try to avoid a suffocating death. Global peace and security largely depend on China in future. If there is a democratic government in China within a decade, good for the world. If not, God save us then! If there is democracy in China, positive social reforms—especially the position of women—in hardbound Islamic societies, a humbler America, at an ease Europe and an India that isn’t merely in the rat race to compete against the worst to excel, we can lay the foundation for the best version of globe.

As you lie down in self isolation, don’t just fart with boredom in your living rooms or be hyperactive in bedrooms, try to be the best versions of yourself. You have lots of time. The specter of running from the pillar to post isn’t staring down your neck anymore for the time being. You have the most precious commodity as per the modern parameters of human civilization: Time. So welcome all your deep-held softer urges to be creative, to be something more than what the circumstances have forced you into, to be a bit more than you have become. Nurture those little dreams. Use the pause creatively. Learn cooking, read, write, paint, do gardening, rectify haywire gone relationships, let your family see the best version of yourself.

Even your pets will be ecstatic at finding you at home, the entire family dining together, have chat, watching TV. A pet dog Robo in Essex UK went berserk with ecstasy finding the owner family at home: eight wonder, all of them together. He acknowledged it to the core of his innocent heart. Wagged its tail almost the entire day and got a painful sprain in it. He has been prescribed painkillers for a week and its tail tied. Now it has to show its love and affection only through its mellifluous eyes. But I am sure, he will find the pain worth it.

Of course this too will pass. It hardly matters. What matters most is what is left behind. I hope the best version of all and everything will be sowed like winter seeds to sprout during one fine spring!