Soldier Uncle's Badminton Hops to Shuttle Away Corona

Corona Corona everywhere! Marona Marona its echo from the opposite horizon! It’s cloudy and pretty cool for this time of late March. I am doing rounds in my courtyard. Flowers smile and plants give an assurance that not everything is lost. Getting bored has never been my cup of tea. I am confident of spending 10 years in isolation at the tiniest island in the remotest seas, provided I have at least 1000 big books and get one frugal meal a day. But then collective humongous waves of the united yawns of boredom of the humanity locked up in their houses reach me and turn me a bit restless like an old frog that moves, at long last, a bit from its hibernation and looks with suspicion and sadness around.

The neighborhood uncle shows his inquisitive eyes across the grills of the safely secured Iron Gate. I have to keep my fort well protected to keep stray humans from barging in. Even stray dogs are more welcome into the house these days. Well, he has been firmly shaped and caste into a disciplinarian mould in the army. Generally, this cast lasts well after the retirement, till the fag end of life in fact. I am forced to greet him with the minimum courtesy. I stand the risk of sounding almost rude. I have to ward him off till Corona lasts, but then I have to keep normal neighborly etiquette also for non-Corona times. Given my overblown enthusiasm for social isolation, as a mark of my contribution in the war against Corona (as inspired by our caring and hardworking PM), I come dangerously close to sound outrightly impolite. I stop myself from falling so low just to save this physical self, which in any case all of us have to shed some day or the other. It’s totally unlike me. I can see shock and surprise surfacing in his eyes. ‘What has happened to this decent guy?’ he must have thought. But the dangerous equation of social isolation seems to spoil the very definition of mankind, i.e., mankind as a social animal. This Corona will spoil all community relations, leaving us antisocial animals.

‘How are you Uncle?’ I try to pour sugar over my recently acquired bitterness, but end up asking like a robot with no warmth and affection.

All this while, I am scared that my usual smile would see my gate being crashed and the visitor barging in. I am standing at a distance from the gate, hoping that he just happens to pass along the street on his unmilitary type infringement of curfew. Well, strange are the times! Those who are instinctively prone to break law and regulation at every nook corner panic the most and behave like the most obedient kids. On the other hand, the normal time decent law-abiding guys may become adventurists and get a taste of the changed attitude. May be they are like the otherwise cornered animals who now come out to jump, hop and gallop a bit on the empty stage.

Encouraged by my remedial action, his badminton racket, raised above his head, greets me. I see it as a sword taken in an attacking stance to breach the defense system of the fort of my isolation.

‘Was getting bore son, so thought of having a bit of game,’ he says and I give the blankest of an expression in order to murder the evening badminton player in him. ‘And all these farmers, oofs the uncaring, ignorant Corona carriers give me jitters. Only you seem to give a sense of security about your following the rules,’ he tries to break the mask of my frigidity through the arrows of flattery. It appears he is really itching to play.

He is a minimalist. If he offers tea to someone at his house, he would expect half of the things that go into making tea to be carried by the visitor himself. So I am sure he will be the last person to get his second racket to be spoiled in a game, even if he is proposing the game to beat his boredom. I am sure he is carrying only one racket. About shuttles I cannot think even in wildest dreams he will ever carry.

‘Ummn, sorry uncle my rackets are broken,’ I just keep things to the bare minimum too ward off any chance of a foreign foot treading my well-protected yard.

‘But yesterday I saw you playing badminton with your niece till late in the evening,’ he seems to complete a full game with one racket and without shuttles.

I have turned very mean during Corona times, as I have already mentioned. The lie slips out like a hungry snake slithers out of its hole to chase a mouse. O God, so unlike me!

‘Yea, we had a fantastic evening full of badminton yesterday, but but…’ my usually honest tongue puts up a little coma as a mark of its protest before I splurge out the lie.

‘But, but what?’ he peers through the gate at the prisoner inside. Look at the scenario: here prisoners are fighting to keep their jails intact!

I expertly overcome the tiny coma protest and say with confidence, ‘By mistake the rackets were left in the barn store at night and at night mice had an amazing follow up games of badminton. The netting has holes where the biggest rats in the world can pass on easily.’

I am sure the mice have soiled his game also. In fact, I am relieved a bit and hold lesser grudge against the rodents now for creating a chance, through their fictitious part in the story, to ward off possible Corona carrying intruders.

‘Oh, even you are getting careless like these simpletons around,’ he swings his racket around to demarcate the circles of foolery, which in fact comes to cover the entire village. I am presented as an exception from the typical countryside lampoons. A matter of pride! But if I cherish the pride, I have pay a price also! So I quell my ego and don’t accept the flattery.  

I derive sadistic pleasure out of this helplessness in his eyes. The moment of pleasure is so short lived that I haven’t yet felt its comforting feel in the tiniest part of my brain. He has murdered my pleasure like he must have thought of murdering the enemies in the battlefield. Well, he never fired a bullet in his entire career by the way, so my father teased him as a bagpiper soldier, for which he has never forgiven my father even 10 years after my father left his body, leaving the aggrieved soldier to keep nursing the scars on his soldierly conscience.

I focus my eyes to conform what they see might be wrong. Uncle soldier has done a coup. I see two rackets in his hands held tightly in his fist like he is holding the triumphant flag of mother India proclaiming victory after a bloodied battle. In the other hand, he holds the shuttle proudly by the tip. He holds it like he has won an Olympics gold medal. The most exuberant soldier! I don’t think I can bear up with the assault for too long now. I stand in utter helplessness.

‘We will have a game,’ the intruder beams with sadistic pleasure.

‘Uncle you are so well informed I know. This Corona…’ I use my last bullet against the enemy.

‘This Corona can’t kill our spirits!’ he cuts my bullet right in the middle of its path by the thundering cannon shot of his war cry.

‘Here is the sanitizer!’ he shows off another item from his armory. ‘The rackets and the shuttle are well rubbed with the sanitizer. In fact you need to be cleaned up to be entitled to touch them!’

My fort lies broken and vandalized. The enemy is in. As the victorious King, he decides the terms of negotiation. I am the defeated King and have to listen and follow up his instructions. I find myself obediently rubbing sanitizer on my hand to change my status of an untouchable.

As I rub, he is peering into the pores of my soft poetic hands. ‘Rub with force man! You are still young. Destroy each and every Corona from your hands. It’s a war!’ he is no longer a miser with the sanitizer bottle and pours a big splurge, as if I am a confirmed Corona case. Looking at the way he is using it so copiously, I am sure he has moved out the entire sanitization stock from the army canteen, where they get it at terribly subsidized rates.

So I am sufficiently quarantined. ‘I have to keep in check any involuntary coughing during the play, otherwise he will immediately call police and doctors to get me isolated at the stinking civil hospital in the city nearby!’ in my sullen silence I take stock of the situation.

‘After every set, we will sanitize our hands as well as the shuttle and the rackets!’ I hear him setting up his kingdom after conquering the enemy territory. My spirit is already defeated. So I start with unwilling movements. All I hear is his warlike guffaws and instructions. ‘He never fired a bullet while in the army,’ I hear my father’s sagely baritone voice. ‘So the old soldier is trying to win wars here after retirement,’ I am having my revenge intangibly. I move sluggishly to beat down his enthusiasm for a competitive game and get him bored to hell. Even by losing you can defeat many people!

‘Aren’t you feeling well? Um, not feeling ok! Some problem…Corona!’ Before he gives the final confirmation of one more Corona case, I am forced to cut him short with a hard smash which nearly missed his nose.

With my hard hit, I give a proof that I am feeling OK and there is no Corona scare in the yard. But a defeated soldier bears all ignominy. The victor thinks he is all sense and the fallen one is all nonsense. Having sanitized me, thus availing the advantage of incalculable value, he is finding faults with my ways of covering the court, my movements, my way of holding the racket, in fact everything. Oofs! I know I am not even the village champion. But, am I that horrible at badminton?! I am trying my level best to keep my temper in stock instead of losing it.

But the heights of insanity now! ‘You have to dive while you try to reach for a shot from a distance. Don’t run unnecessarily like this and tire yourself out!’ his latest instruction lands like molten lead in my ears.

Well, guys this is intolerable. When and where did you see a player diving to reaching the shuttle in a game of badminton? You dive in the air to take a catch in cricket. You do it because after that you roll on to the ground and you don’t have to immediately get back to your feet to hit the shuttle back. I cannot make the head and tale of it.

With my hands on my hips in a confrontationist stance, I ask him like an Indian General will ask his Pakistani counterpart, ‘Well uncle, what do you mean by diving to hit the shuttle. Am I a cat, so that I will jump up again within a fraction of a second to return the shot? Do you expect me to stop the dive midair and get back into the normal stance? One takes long strides and lunges forward to hit the shuttle. When did any player on earth dived to hit the shuttle, Uncle?’ I am irritated to the hell.

Soldier uncle still has his confidence in the face of my unsporty fusillade. ‘Yes, you have to dive!’ he says with steely determination. ‘Like this!’

He moves sideways to demonstrate like an old, old leopard cat. With his racket aloft he hops like an old toad sideways to jump like you do in sacked foot race. This jump of a couple of feet sideways turned out to be his dive. Why would you put up so much of effort to walk like a Penguin, if without effort you can run like a rabbit, a bit old though?

‘But why would one jump like a frog in a hot pan, if one can take one’s foot in a lunge forward or just parting the legs a bit more than the normal?’ I am clueless about this latest Bermuda Triangle tragedy.

He is doing it like he is the coach of the Indian badminton team. Hops to this way, then that way. These are the dives to beat the world champion. I am stunned by an assault of sudden laughter. I bend down with laughter. I hold my guts to save them from the ravages of laughter. He is confused about what is so funny about it. That’s how it is done, he is sure. With laughter-assaulted waters in my eyes, I go to his part of the court and hug him for his cutest old toad hops, the so called dives, which he believes can beat the best in the world.

As I hug him, I hear him muttering with suspicion, ‘Hope you have been washing clothes daily, that too in Dettol’

   

High-flying Corona

Now the Corona scare penetrates deep in the countryside. The village saloon-keeper, a very nice friend of mine by the way, has a very adventurist brother. Just like anyone around might draw every ounce of capability and cunningness to fulfill the basic needs of life, he puts up every effort to board a flight to be away in a different country or region to, primarily, nurture a sense of being a businessman even if hypothetically, and, secondarily, to have a bit, o sorry a lot, of fun. So New York is no better than Timbuktu to him. Lo, here he lands up in the sleepy village from Bangkok. As most of we Indians are expert at, he does a roundabout to dodge the little trouble of staying isolated officially for 14 days, only to come across the bigger trouble of gifting cough and sneezing from the exotic land. So we the Indians will use all expertise of our calculating, cunning persona to avoid 14 Day quarantine, believing that it cannot happen to me, and then walk into a bigger quagmire, not just for ourselves but for many others also. We love sharing! Don’t we?

So here he moves around his family and mixes with his social circle in the village, drinking wine with his pals and telling tales of the latest adventure. By the time the healthcare workers arrived to take a stock of the situation, his brother, the saloon keeper, has shaved the chins of almost half of the village. The house has been put under quarantine. A paper nicely slapped over the nameplate as a sort of punishment. Their entire identity hijacked by the little piece of paper.

Now imprisoned with his huge joint family numbering into dozens, my friend, the saloon keeper, sounded even angry. “They just shout from the outside ‘How are you’ without coming inside,” he is furious. What does he expect? Does he expect them to come and embrace them? Well, I think he can keep his expectations a bit low till 14 days pass and the reports come. Till then all those who have visited his saloon are waiting like their own reports are to be released soon. People are no longer as dismissive of the pandemic like they sounded earlier when the scary reports from distant parts started arriving. This is a very tiny planet, you should remember!

During the fateful period, with me being ignorant of the gallant boy’s return from exciting Bangkok, I remember having gone for a long, long evening walk with my saloon-keeper friend. In the countryside, the child buddies share a special bond. We still prefer to walk with hands on each other’s shoulder, like two bulls yoked to pull a plough. It’s taken as a sign of real friendship. Now, like a sullen monkey, I rethink about the outdated signs and symbolisms of childhood countryside friendships. So the incident has spoiled my mood a bit. But then it has spoiled the temper of all those who had got themselves shaved at his saloon. So I am not alone in this mild scare.

I had thrashed him once during our childhood. ‘If you get Corona, I will thrash you again!’ I baulk at him over phone. ‘And if I don’t, then? he is on back foot, as if he has committed a crime. ‘Then you will be lucky to retain friendship. But no longer shoulder to shoulder child-buddy strolls anymore. We are graying middle-aged men now!’ I still appear aggrieved and in no mood to spare the poor fellow.

So the lockdown acquires exciting colors now. My hair has grown like a mendicant friar. ‘We will use a trimmer to give an amateur bald cut to each other,’ I propose to my younger brother. He has a glint of mischief and immediately aggrees. I smell the mischief in his eyes. Corona scare gives you extra sensitivity. ‘No, no you will run away before your turn comes up after making me funnily furrowed badie!’ I read his intentions very well. ‘So I will give you a bald cut first to avoid this,’ I propose. I am serious. ‘And what if you run away after giving me the funniest bald furrows on my head?’ he has an inkling of my mischief also. My Corona scared brain works out a solution for the emergency. ‘You have your trimmer, I have mine. We will call two people and ask them to start putting balding furrows at the stroke of zero second, like they start a 100 meter race with a bang.’ He has agreed to the suggestion. So during the lockdown at least the haircutting problem seems to have been resolved.

My mother had a special liking for this brown and white female street dog. She would even chase away other dogs to feed this backbencher, who stood meekly at the end of the group. The tradition has been kept alive by us to specially give chapattis to this one. Now the problem is that another dog of exactly same appearance has arrived on the scene and has enjoyed the perks and benefits of looking like our preferred dog. My niece appeared disturbed over this fact. The poor dog went empty stomached from our threshold a few times. It is very disturbing. With the Corona jolt, I seem to have turned very mean and scheming. ‘I will pour some black oil on the rascal’s smooth coat to demarcate it and spoil its camouflage!’ I am determined. See, what Corona does to even those who have grown up assuming themselves to be decent human beings. I hope by the end of the war against Corona, I may emerge a full rascal ready to take on the world.        

Love during the Corona War

With India locked up, and dirty boy Corona doing the rounds out there in the streets to catch any gallant humans outside, a new generation might be unleashed as bored, scared and desperate couples use their unspent energies through forgetting and forgiving dives into the pools of physical intimacy. Demographic statisticians must be waiting with bated breaths, scared with the added workload waiting in the wings, at the possible surge in the population growth curve. To the hell with Corona waging a war from the side of mortality! We Indians are the valiant foot soldiers of the goddess of fertility and procreation. With back-breaking fight for economic survival being suspended, we may go all out into procreation to tilt the scale in favor of creation against the forces of destruction. Idiotic Corona peeking through the windows will surely lose heart. The moaning moments of human creation will make it feel ashamed of its destructive potential. We have the onus of keeping creation ahead of destruction. An entire new generation will crop up, sired out of fear, boredom and desperation, the Corona time brats. They are sure to have congenital immunity against the deadly virus. The fight in the bedrooms will take two courses. The couples who have been waging wars against each other like the worst enemies on earth will fall into bed after calling a ceasefire. The best lovebirds, who have been the apple of each other’s eyes since decades or even moths, will fall down on the floor with an all out scratching of each other’s hair like wild cats fighting to save the universe. To disappoint master Corona, both these courses will have the same result, addition to the stock of Homosapiens, the Corona-resistant generation. So when the sun  will smile warmly again after the frigid night, and the air will be free of Corona scare, many a lady will have motherly compassionate smile on their lips as they walk a bit more carefully while rolling their hands softly on their elevated tummies. Look forward to better times, man! Keep Hope!

Calculate your equation of farting and planting trees

Every time you offend the modesty of the air around your ass, stealthily (as majority of us do) or unabashedly (like some of us do), both deriving sadistic pleasure in their silent and violent ways respectively, run to the nearest tree and hug it for it is a mute, uncomplaining spectator, a sort of sufferer but still diligently doing its duty of a purifier of our misdeeds. Right from our apparently innocuous farts to the Himalayan gas emissions by the airplane darts, we leave a trail of exhausts that leaves Mother Nature stunned. So don’t expect that It won’t grimace with irritation. Farting should remind you of your well esteemed primary status of being a pollutant. So hug the tree and say sorry. It may still be scared of you as you hug it, fearing a still more grotesque version of your blast, the blast of your ego and greed that manifests so often in mass slaying of trees. CHOP CHOP CHOP! So my dear little pollutant, plant more trees. One tree per fart will be asking for too much because you have to accomplish planet-taming endeavors also and still have to tame other planets in the solar system. But I think, one tree for 100 farts will absolve you of your crimes. You will carry better conscience also, I tell you. So fart more, dart more, but take the message of planting tree to every door!

A note of thanks to PM Modi

When you put money, and the rest of its resultant materialistic derivatives, above everything and anything else, and make it the axis of human existence, like Western countries have done since centuries, you get big economic statistics to give you a false sense of security. But does it bring joy, peace and harmony in its wake? It hardly does as you can surmise from the exponential growth of human sufferings alongside the economic growth. The irony is, monetary figures are mind creations, and are hardly effective in fighting against the consequences of the overblown money-making process. They create a smoke-screen of development and progress, turning us blind to the real plights. The causes stand hidden in the natural, biological cauldron. To succeed against the same, you have to prioritize human life over economy because humans make money not vice versa. So while Trump finds economic depression worse than the prospects of mass deaths due to Corona and hence is still spending much of his energies in creating economic solutions, PM Modi has humanistically abandoned all talks of moneymaking at this juncture. The unprecedented lockdown of the country is a proof of the eastern humanist values of putting human lives above money. This pause will make India a world leader, a shining example of being a progressive, kind and considerate society. We are a massive society. The challenge is unprecedented. But when your leader abandons all secondary priorities and spends sleepless nights to save lives, in plain and simple terms without any political and economic compulsions, the success is inevitable. Salutes PM Modi! This economically unthinkable—at least in Western terms—step of putting up a pause will reinvigorate India and make it healthy to an extent that the rest of the world will look towards it for inspiration in future. Thank you PM so much! It's an honor to have voted for you! It feels like my vote carries a value worth millions of dollars!

Holy Fire

I am the moth

and I love my flame!

My fire!

But I feel the burning core of

the glow around which

I helplessly circle around!

I know that I cannot stop

the fire from burning,

So I throw myself in a fiery pit

to forget my dear flame's burning plight!

I throw myself in a bigger fire

so that I forget myself

and my flame's cries!

Listen O Thou Majestic Homosapiens

    

So the nanometer master Corona brings the Hercules to knees. Don't panic. We have performed miserably. So Mother Nature is just holding us by the ears. Oh, we the errant kids! All we need is a civilizational pause, a collective hiatus. And think and reshape our priorities. Align them along the fundamental laws of nature. Apart from a few thousand unfortunate deaths of humans, Mother Nature is a bit mollified as carbon emissions have come down a bit due to the forced suspension of our mad rush. Now let's go a bit slowly and make pause a choice.

Corona virus isn't just a disease; it's a message from Mother Nature, a bit stern though because we have turned deaf to her warnings. Holy Mother has been giving messages: Amazon forest fires, Australian bushfires, floods, polar ice melts, etc, etc. But modern society hardly cares about such message, which don't seem to affect it directly. So here SHE goes now and shoots down a poignant, straightforward message that hits us directly. No if and but about it. 'Listen little fools listen!' she whispers like an offended mother. HER invisible soldiers can puncture our egos. 'Now mend your ways little kids!' SHE says. 'Or be prepared for the WORST in future. All your so called inventions, discoveries, researches will turn out to be futile efforts at finding solutions to your self-created problems. And solutions to self-created problems will create further problems only! And this little drama on the stage called human civilization may come to an end FAR-FAR SOONER than anyone of you may ever think or imagine!'

Ye karo, vo karo, karo, karo, karo na, karo, karo na, karonaaa, Corona....itna kiya ki ab maro na, maro na! Chacha Corona should be rechristened Na Coro, mat karo, ye na koro, vo na koro, Naaaa Coro....NaCoro...bongs seem to have something to do with it. I think some Bengali researcher will crack the solution. 'O babu moshai, koro na, ya na koro, maachh khabo, dwai Lebo!'

Let us spare a few moments for the Chinese. I like their entrepreneurial practicality. However, it turns counter-productive after a point. Good that you take it as a weakness to have faith and be a believer. But doesn’t it dehumanize society collectively? The check-dams to our human rascality break and we get a flesh and blood robot who never listens to the soft voice of conscience, where everything is acceptable in the name of material progression, power, profits and global superpower status.

Animals are hellishly tortured, burnt and boiled alive in Chinese live animal food markets. If someone wants to have a glimpse of what hell may look like, I would recommend Chinese animal food markets. There are thousands there. It’s a mammoth pooling of negative karma operated like enormous factory where the raw material is slaughter, boiling alive, suffering and pain of a vast number of animal species. Of course, there will be negative off shoots as we witness it presently.    

There are costs to be paid as an omnivorous carnivore society like the Chinese. Not judgmental about them. They have every right to eat anything, including themselves. But then one can't rule out scenarios like Corona virus. There are a huge number of human-hazardous viruses hosted by animal and bird species. In this case, bats are the hosts for this virus. The poor bat was gobbled by the snake who in turn found himself on the enthusiastic dining table of a Chinese and lo, the world gets an epidemic. At Wuhan market, you have truckloads of dogs, live foxes, crocodiles, wolf puppies, giant salamanders, snakes, rats, peacocks, porcupines, camel meat and you name anything possible under the sun to douse human gluttony. Eat man eat, I know you love boiling live beings and take burps of world supremacy! But why spread the evil effects of your gluttony world over! As an epidemic-scared globalist, I am as scared of the hunger rumblings in a Chinese stomach as a dog is while being ferried to the dog market. Because God, or maybe even dog, knows, what new species may end up on the table of the Chinese culinary experiment, unleashing some new virus in the food chain. Given their overblown aspirations to rule the world by cramming Chinese nationals all over the globe, the strain travels faster than their supernukes. As a poor vegetarian Indian, I am more scared of the viral-nukes launched from their dinner tables than the globe-destroying weaponry. God, errr dogs, save us! I am getting more and more scared. I think, the human race will be destroyed, not by nukes and supernukes as you may suppose, but by some hitherto unheard of culinary experiment in some Chinese kitchen where some animal, reptile or bird might be boiled and cooked for the first time in their entire millions of years of history, introducing a viral strain that will eat the entire globe-load of Homo-sapiens. Oh God, see, o dogs rather! To make it still worse, if I fall in the Chinese hands, the kindest of them would still be happy to roast me alive and bring about another culinary experiment!

Like they do to conscious beings, rest of us in the non-Chinese part of the world, aren’t less culpable. We do the same to natural resources. We slaughter acres after acres of pristine forests. We destroy river ecosystems through dams. We rape mother earth through unsustainable mining and quarrying. We spoil coastlines, pillage hill slopes, pollute air and water bodies. Trees at their prime lay butchered. Their corpses tell their murder stories: “I stood for decades by the path giving shade, shelter and pure air. Then the path changed colors. Its sands turned into tar. And I became a roadblock and done away with smoothly. Best of luck Homo sapiens!’

So who will have the last laugh? The climate shocks have been unprecedented. Horrific! Cold has slaughtered soot and saplings with its unsparing frosty sword. Heat almost boils. An angry Mother is forced to cry with pain. It turns out to be wrath poured out with tears in eyes and a bloodied heart. Mother ignored and abused like garden cactus still has a few flowers to help us smile again. Irrespective of the severe damage, it decides to retain its smile. Its smile overcomes the frosty burns. With tears in eyes, aching heart and a forgiving smile on lips it says: ‘Happiness is a choice. A conscious effort, independent of so many external factors that you presume to be finally decisive for our happiness! Stop the mad rush. The joy comes from within.’

Beyond the storm in the cup of we Homosapiens, from astronomical distances, Father Sun dies to reborn again. ‘Death is the beginning of birth. Birth is the beginning of death. In fact, there is no death or birth. All we have is simply an ever-evolving transformation, simply a process! Live and let live sons and daughters, learn to live in harmony. To me a grain of sand, a tree, an insect, an animal, bird or you, all are the same. Never forget this brotherliness. Otherwise you perish and turn to sands. Everything!’ Got some sense out of His message? If not, kindly read it a few time more!

As you suffer and suffocate in the jail like homes due to the lock downs, please don’t curse Mother Nature for the fall outs! Mother Nature’s razor sharp talons, piercing beak, and predatory eyes are just an illusion. At the core lies the baby soft, melodious hymn of love. Salutes O Mother! Once the storms are over, the motherly ray will come down to kiss and heal! But for that you have to show repentance, accept your faults and promise to mend your ways. Don’t forget, one tear in your eyes gives her thousands in her heart. To make you laugh again, she has her own mollycoddling ways. A superb full-moon night waits around the corner for a milky delight! So just see through the self-created smoggy night, where the sun has been hidden and airs have been suffocated to death in gas chambers. The rainstorm may appear unsparing and unrelenting. Still lots of smiles left! We have to believe.

Go and touch a nearby tree with the faith of a true friend and close your eyes, standing under His majestic, protective canopy. He responds! Feels your pain! He transfers His energy to heal your wounded soul. He will be helping you in getting back your faith in life and living. He is your sincerest friend. The tree somewhere! Go and embrace Him! Reconcile. He will definitely reciprocate. Probably He looks forward to your visit to His house. Say thanks to buddy! You never know at what level of reality He is existing. A saintly King I tell you. Listen as you put your ears to His so called wooden heart: “I am basking in my sovereignty! I am the King of the world not visible to the human eyes! I am crowned with celestial lights!” You will hear it clearly. Just open up your soul. The miseries will melt away.

A mother is a mother is a mother. It's her selfless love that is driving the force through the rescuer's hands! You are bound to survive because a mother has to be forgiving. She is simply reprimanding you for the evils you have spread around. With lovely, kissable traces of sadness, the day which appears to close its eyes here will surely open them with a child's verve and happiness somewhere else! It’s not all over yet. All that we need is that we have to realign our priorotoes.

There is always hope,

As long as nature holds the rope

through its smile pure,

Survive we will for sure!

Pause is the remedy. Otherwise, be ready for a bit more stern messages. She has to shriek a bit louder to make our deaf ears hear Her plight. God forbid it may turn out to be a catastrophe as bad as WW 3! The choice is entirely ours. We get what we sow.

On a tiny molehill of hope, I see the faintest tinkling of hope. Now when most of the human population over the planet is exactly following the kind of lifestyle which has been my routine life for years, I feel that I belong to this planet only, not some disgraced extraterrestrial species!

Home stay is a torture and imprisonment for those who have existed on the surface, identifying with the externalities; whose life has been just a mad rush after the mirages that pop up in the sandy desert of illusions. Cool down fellas, Mother Nature has given you guys an assignment to look within. It's a chance to rebrand yourself and become a better version. That's how this civilization will change. At least you get time to think. So don't yawn with killing boredom and look within O thou development champions!

Of course there will be a remedy for Errant Chacha Corona! No doubt. But it will be a bandage for symptoms only. The roots of the tree of our sustenance and survival have been shaken. So all isolated efforts to find an antidote for Corona Chacha will be simply like disinfecting the pale leaves of a tree whose roots are being eaten by termites. So as your own house turns into a jail, kindly study the roots! It's an open book. Read it!

As mankind suffers in these Corona crazy times, Mother Nature appears to regain Her footing. Simple math: our interests and Her interests---because of our collective misdemeanor---stand antagonist, in terrible disproportion, to each other. A scary mathematics! Simply because we are a tiny subset of Her overall set. Possibly Mother Nature finds us like pathogens, just as we find Corona for our system. Solution: Ours and nature's existence should be proportional and in harmony!

Gone into self isolation! Well, take it as an apprenticeship into the art of prisoners. There is a huge backlog of our collective sins. So we have to serve prison terms in various ways. So hone the art of a diligent, obedient prisoner. All situations have positive outcomes also. Take away yours during these moments of being alone and isolated. Read your life and reflect over the path. You will realize your little part in the evil drama Homosapiens have been playing for a few thousand years. Rectify your part and you stand absolved from your side.

Corona ka Karnama is written in scary script. The most dreaded criminals, tucked in the highest security and the most isolated cells, are the safest among the Homosapiens as of now. Meanwhile, birds are singing more chirpily. Animals roam more freely. Trees smell fresher air as pollution plummets down. When the rest of all are feeling better, how come we are suffering most miserably!? Mathematically, it means we are the source of miseries to each and everything falling in the category of non-Homosapiens.

If mother nature had a language like ours, or we had the ears and mind to hear and understand what she has to convey, we would come to know that we have turned out to be nothing sort of Corona virus to Her. And what do we do to fight Corona? We launch a full scale war to counter the bug's onslaught through isolation, sanitization, debugging, antibiotics, etc, etc. Isn't She also doing the same against someone who is Corona-type lethal to Her? Mind you, Her tools to save Herself are floods, earthquakes, Tsunamis, epidemics, drought, forest fires, etc. It's high time we raise a white flag of peace and call ceasefire and get onto the negotiating table, for endless are Her resources in this fight. We hardly stand any chance.

When humans kill their fellow human beings---we need not repeat the multi million murders in the name of religion, caste, creed, nationality, ethnicity and rest of all our mind-contrived ways and means to slaughter each other---there is hardly anything scary about it. It passes off as passable act of routine violence. But when humans die at the hands of other agents, they panic too much. When millions get slaughtered in the name of religion, there is hardly any world scale scare. But when a little one wants to propagate its species, we get scared to the guts.

Get some sense O thou majestic owner of this tiny planet, Homosapiens. Mother Nature has given you this heavenly blissful planet. Accept your role in the things going awry! Rectify your errors. Still there is a chance! Grab it before it’s too late!